Need help on what to upgrade

[StephenMB]

Ok, so I really thought I had a very high end rig, though I bought it a few years ago, but am not happy with playing 5 instances of WoW.

I play my tank/driver on 2560X1440 with everything set at max settings (except ground clutter, I don't like ground clutter). I set anti-Aliasing to MSAA 8X, then on advanced tab MSAA is Color 8X, Direct X 11 Legacy, and graphics card is set to my graphics card.

My 4 slaves play on 4 windows on another monitor 4X 960/540. Those are all set to detail lvl 1, direct X 11 Legacy.

My 4 slaves are VERY choppy. Not a slideshow bu pretty close. and frankly I am an idiot when it comes to hardware and tweaking my computer and stuff....so here is my system below...

GOAL: What can I do/upgrade on my system below so it will able to run my slaves with at LEAST medium settings and not get a low framerate/speed? I want all 5 windows to look good and high FR.



Case: Conqueror Case - Galaxy Silver


Noise Reduction: Noise Reduction Level 3 - Replace All Fans


Internal Lighting: Ironside RGB LED Strip


Intel Processor Haswell: Intel Core I7-6950X 3.0GHz (Deca Core)


CPU Cooling: Iron Tundra Custom Liquid Cooling [240mm Radiator]


PC Liquid Coolant: Blood Red


Motherboard: Enthusiast X99 Chipset Motherboard


Memory: Corsair Vengeance Red LED 64GB (8x8GB) DDR4 3000Mhz


M.2 Storage: None


Primary Hard Drive: Samsung 850 Pro Series 512GB SSD


Secondary Hard Drive: 2TB 7200 RPM


Optical Drive: None


Graphics Card: Nvidia Titan X (Pascal) 12GB (Min. 800 Watt Power Supply)


Power Supply: Standard 800 Watt


Operating System: Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit





I really dont want to spend $1,200 on another Titan X Graphics card, but I can... just hope there are other less expensive options to get this thing faster and meaner to do what I want. Or maybe I have ISBoxer configured wrong on like the cores (its set to default core mapping) and what window or something like that? or I have heard of people overclocking their processors or video card? No idea how to do this...but could figure it out with the right guide. Anyway, just not sure what to do.... Thank you.

[MiRai]

I set anti-Aliasing to MSAA 8X
That's pretty hardcore - Could you not get by with 4x, or even 2x? I hate aliasing, as well, but sometimes you have to pick and choose what you max out and what you don't (or can't). If you haven't already, you can enable Multisample Alpha Test and it will improve MSAA at the cost of practically nothing, and if you're running a single-GPU setup, then you should look into enabling nVidia's MFAA in the driver control panel, for WoW.


My 4 slaves play on 4 windows on another monitor 4X 960/540.
This detail is probably irrelevant since it's likely all of your game windows are rendering at the size of Region 1 of your Window Layout. At least, that's what the default setting is, unless you've specifically altered that behavior. I'm just pointing this out because there are still many people who use ISBoxer that don't realize this.


My 4 slaves are VERY choppy. Not a slideshow bu pretty close. and frankly I am an idiot when it comes to hardware and tweaking my computer and stuff
I had a similar system myself that I just recently upgraded, but I would imagine that it should be fine for 1440, since I multiboxed at 2160 (4K) with a 6950X and 1080 Ti. I would assume that your poor performance is, at least, partly from a bad CPU strategy, bad framerate limiter choices, and/or a power plan that is set to save power, rather than push performance.

If you don't mind my face, my voice, or my tendency to ramble on about things annoying, then I look at performance in BFA, after patch 8.1, in this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMdDurXgyhI), and you can see my monitoring software in the corner.


What can I do/upgrade on my system
Not much, without moving to a newer platform (newer AMD X570 or slightly older Intel X299), but if the game folder isn't already on the SSD, it probably should be.


I really dont want to spend $1,200 on another Titan X Graphics card
I regret to inform you that the RTX Titan is twice that price (https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/deep-learning-ai/products/titan-rtx/) these days, and you'd be looking at a 2080 Ti for ~$1200. AMD cannot currently match nVidia's current line-up, and the 3000-series of nVidia's new GPU line-up is rumored to be out later this year, but there's zero information about that other than "it's coming." So, if you can't wait for a release date that doesn't yet exist, then, realistically speaking, your only upgrade choice is currently a 2080 Ti—it'll be a nice jump in performance, but you lose 1GB of VRAM.


Or maybe I have ISBoxer configured wrong on like the cores (its set to default core mapping) and what window or something like that? or I have heard of people overclocking their processors or video card? No idea how to do this...but could figure it out with the right guide. Anyway, just not sure what to do.... Thank you.
As I mentioned up above, that's what I assume is your issue. With so many threads, you should probably be limiting each Slot that contains a game window to either 4 threads, or find something that overlaps nicely and uses 6 on each, or maybe just the Slot you play from most often. I assume that FPS should be limited to something like 60/20, and you'd want to be using either the "High" or "Ultimate" power plans while multiboxing (just turn it back down afterward). Barring any thermal throttling on that 6950X, you should see, at least, a small bump in performance.

[StephenMB]

Mirai,

Thanks for all the feedback. The power is highest performance for sure. Did that on day 1 :) I actually did watch your video a few weeks ago and it helped me understand a lot.. yes, sometimes you tangent but overall great stuff!

Do you have a video on CPU strategy? Like Master Slot CPU and all the other settings? I have no idea what I am looking at tbh....and I just dont want to select random stuff as I have no idea what it does. Or..... maybe based on my computer specs above you could give me a core strategy to try??!!?? Would owe ya one big time!

[MiRai]

Do you have a video on CPU strategy? Like Master Slot CPU and all the other settings? I have no idea what I am looking at tbh....and I just dont want to select random stuff as I have no idea what it does. Or..... maybe based on my computer specs above you could give me a core strategy to try??!!?? Would owe ya one big time!
I talk about this in the first video of my latest one-on-one video series - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m7IMrZtTjI&feature=youtu.be&t=3998

[StephenMB]

I talk about this in the first video of my latest one-on-one video series - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m7IMrZtTjI&feature=youtu.be&t=3998
Loved it, thanks. Looks like we have the same amount of cores/threads... So anyway, I did 8 dedicated on my main window that is set to ultra settings and then 3 on each of the remaining 4 windows that are all set to lowest.

[WOWBOX40]

Just be aware that if f.ex a cpu has 4 cores + 4 threads, a total of 8 "threads", core 0 is a pure core, while 1 is its hyperthreaded partner (which outputs around 1/3 of the pure one), etc. This mean that if you f.ex want to manually assign 2 cores to a game = 0, 1, 2, 3.

If a game doesnt have a pure core assigned, you can run into stability/performance issues. F.ex if you assigned 1 and 3 to a game.

[StephenMB]

Just be aware that if f.ex a cpu has 4 cores + 4 threads, a total of 8 "threads", core 0 is a pure core, while 1 is its hyperthreaded partner (which outputs around 1/3 of the pure one), etc. This mean that if you f.ex want to manually assign 2 cores to a game = 0, 1, 2, 3.

If a game doesnt have a pure core assigned, you can run into stability/performance issues. F.ex if you assigned 1 and 3 to a game.

i see. Thank you for this. So the way I did it was:

1-8 : Main window
9-11: window 2
12-14: window 3
15-17: window 4
18-20: window 5
Will that work based on your post? Also, when I run the CPU strategy wizard and it asks for “master slot CPU, does it matter whats in their if I am customizing after which characters get what cores?

[WOWBOX40]

1-8 : Main window ??

(dont you mean 0 - 7?)

You can go adjust the settings anytime you want, if you want to override it with something spesific, click the disired character set in the upper left window, then at the lower left window click on a character, f.ex "1", then its under the "performance" in the lower right window.

[StephenMB]

1-8 : Main window ??

(dont you mean 0 - 7?)

You can go adjust the settings anytime you want, if you want to override it with something spesific, click the disired character set in the upper left window, then at the lower left window click on a character, f.ex "1", then its under the "performance" in the lower right window.
Right, that's what I did...I clicked the Performance tab and set the CPU cores there.. It doesn't start at 0, it starts at 1 and goes to 20 (hence my last post assigning cores). Am I missing something? I haven't seen Core 0 anywhere in isboxer.

[WOWBOX40]

Na its all good then. Seems some cpus show a 0 as the first one, and some show it as nr 1.


In your case... a "pure core and its partner is":

1,2
3,4
5,6
7,8
9,10
11,12
13,14
15,16
17,18
19,20


so i would try first:

game 1:
1,2
3,4

game 2:
5,6
7,8

game 3:
9,10
11,12

game 4:
13,14
15,16

Game 5:
17,18
19,20




If that fails:

game 1:
1,2
3,4
5,6
7,8

game 2:
9,10
11,12

game 3:
13,14
15,16

game 4:
17,18
19,20

Game 5:
17,18
19,20



or:


game 1:
1,2
3,4
5,6
7,8

game 2:
9,10
11,12

game 3:
13,14
15,16

game 4:
17,18

Game 5:
19,20



or maybe something like:


game 1:
1,2
3,4
5,6
7,8
9,10
11,12

game 2:
13,14

game 3:
15,16

game 4:
17,18

Game 5:
19,20



Your milage may wary, just start somewhere and give it a go, its pretty fast to test each config.
Havent personally tested something like your resolution and cores at the same time. Im all 1080p.

[StephenMB]

game 1:
1,2
3,4
5,6
7,8
9,10
11,12

game 2:
13,14

game 3:
15,16

game 4:
17,18

Game 5:
19,20



Your milage may wary, just start somewhere and give it a go, its pretty fast to test each config.
Havent personally tested something like your resolution and cores at the same time. Im all 1080p.

Going to try the one above..... I didn't realize it like 1 and 2 were same one, and 3 and 4 etc..so that one makes a lot of sense to get the most out of my main window with EVERY setting on heh. I will report back once tested. Thanks for input!