drop in power

[Hiarcs]

Now sure what to call it but before last maintenance I had everything running fine. 5 boxing with 2 vid cards and 2 monitors. main on the first monitor and 4 alts on the second monitor.

I had Maxbkfps set to 30 and maxfps set to 100.. I was getting 30 for the alts and the main was around 40-50 fps no problem and it seemed very smooth, no chop no nothing. I was very happy.. So after maintenance i went to continue the characters and noticed it was crazy choppy, region 4 and 5 were around 9 fps while the others said the correct fps. I checked the video settings and for somereason V snyc was enabled on those. I turned them off and restarted everything and it seemed to bring all the FPS back up to what they were when i started the characters. But even tho the FPS were back to normal the machine was still chopping for somereason. I notice the casting bars of the party on the main were very choppy. Now i can't figure out why its doing this now when just the other night it was working wonderful.

When the servers went down for maintenance i did install another program but has nothing to do with world of warcraft so i doubt that could be behind it. So up until now i have tried resetting the regions and nothing seems to be working in getting back to smooth play. Now the FPS say they are fine yet i am getting this chop that was not there before.

has anyone else experienced a sudden change in performance? Also in the next version i recommend some sort of default button in keyclone where it will erase all settings or something..

So for now i am reinstalling the game to see if this works. I will check on vent every hour or so.

[keyclone]

default button? well.. there are 'reset' and 'clear' depending on the setup panel.

of course, you could just exit keyclone, delete the keyclone.ini file... then restart. that would be resetting to defaults.

as for your drop in fps.. there are numerous potential factors.
memory usage power supply video cards video settings a surge could have fried something in-game detail settings could be set to max (most likely the case)

[Hiarcs]

hmm, well like i said it was working Perfect last night before server shut down. Woke up and logged in and noticed the problem. So not sure what happened. There was no surge so not sure about frying anything. also in maximzer when i am setting up the second monitors quadrans, it has like 601x901 instead of 600x900 or what ever values they were at. The chop almost resembles like when you have a window overlapping another. In game settings were default with only the resolution set max for the monitors.

as for memory, i am using 8 GB and when i go into task manager to look at the usage. it says 5000+ in cache and using 3000+ with 300 free or something. looks to be the same when it was running smoothly. I just finished installing wow again so gonna test it.

one thing i would like more clairification on is having 5 wows directories vs 1 wow directory. Is the only difference between the two is if u have 5 directories ur macros will be saved and any mods? Is there a way to just have 1 wow directory have all the macros save for 5 boxing? or do i need 5 wow directories (each for its own acct)

[Dorffo]

one thing i would like more clairification on is having 5 wows directories vs 1 wow directory. Is the only difference between the two is if u have 5 directories ur macros will be saved and any mods? Is there a way to just have 1 wow directory have all the macros save for 5 boxing? or do i need 5 wow directories (each for its own acct)

Check out this thread and the threads linked by the OP:
single vs multiple installs ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=4854')

[Hiarcs]

ok after reinstalling wow it didn't seem to help with the power drop. What once was a perfect gameplay for 5 boxing is now a terrible chop. This does not make sense at all.. how can it be working perfect one day and then next not. Nothing was changed at all inbetween sessions. lol. sad

[keyclone]

just for grins.. try this:

exit all but 1 wow. make a macro for low detail as spec'd here: wow in-game graphic detail macros (helps performance) ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=6521') change your keyclone commands to use the same wow.exe directory exit wow. (this will force a write of the updated video specs) re-run all your commands (now all from the same directory)disregard load times ... we are looking for fps changes.

let me know how that goes

[Hiarcs]

ok well i did that and all it changed was the terrain distance.. as i manually changed everything to low prior to your last reply. That didn't seem to help at all really. See the FPS are saying 40-70 but its as though its really running at 10 fps. The second monitor is running fine all clones are set to a maxbkfps of 30 and thats what they are at even with out the /say detail: low..... etc. Those seem fine. Its just the main monitor which is chopping like hell. The main monitor shows very good FPS but its running as if its only 10 fps. Does this indicate a fried video card or something?

Basically last night i was running at default which is i guess medium settings just fine. No chop no nothing. I was estatic with the results. Now its complete headache to even look at the main monitor as it chops even tho the FPS show to be optimal.

On a side note, i noticed in the launcher there is a little check box to either show it or don't show it. I noticed when i had it unchecked it would eat up all my memory. as i checked it back again i had 3 gigs of ram free. very strange to see that. But checking it back didn't help the "mains" bad chop at all.

Edit: as for my statement regarding does it indicate a fried video card, i am gonna answer my own question by saying probably not due to the fact when i just play solo the FPS are through the roof and no chop what so ever, so if the video card was fried then would probably notice a decrease even in solo mode right?

[keyclone]

if you have a single card, having 1 wow doing 200fps is not the same as 5 doing 40. it'd be closer to 5 doing 30ish... the difference being the extra processing required for different POV and data models.

try setting your alts to 20 and see what the fps are on your main.

of course, you are saying your main's fps is good.. it just looks choppy. if that is the case, it could be latency... and the various characters are not getting their data when they need it (i doutb this.. but its a thought)

let me know if you find out anything more

[Hiarcs]

no i am using 2 cards. the first card is running 1 monitor the second card the 2nd monitor. The second monitor has the clones, the first monitor is running the leader. I just finished uninstalling the drivers and reinstalling them. believe it or not i have the maxbkfps set to 30 and maxfps set to 100 and after reinstalling the drivers the Main actually shows 90-100 FPS and the clones 30 which is what they are set at. But the main is not acting as tho its 90-100 FPS hehe. Uninstalling and installing did help a little bit but nothing major.. It is seriously acting as tho its running between 10-20 FPS (the main) even tho it says 90-100.. The clones i have no issues with at all they are running at Maxbkfps 30 and act as if its 30fps. Just the main (which is on its own GPU) which is acting choppy even tho it says very good FPS.

and again last night it was actually showing less FPS and running as tho it was 50 FPS (smooth). Go figure.

So i have no idea what could of caused this, and i know i wasn't dreaming yesterday when i say things were running awesome rofl.

[keyclone]

ok.. i had a thought. the fps number you are looking at is actually the number of frames per second wow is pushing data to the card. this does not mean, that its the number of frames per second drawn to the screen from video memory (it's been years since i've played with the inner workings of directX and video memory). the double buffering may not be happening as often as you think.

run dxdiag and look @ the display tab. try running the tests.. see what they come up with.

right now, i'm leaning towards driver issues.

here's a thought... put your 2x2 of alts on the 'slow' screen .. and put your big main region on the other screen... see if the alts get choppy

[Hiarcs]

Ok i will try that. I did reinstall the drivers and also uninstalled direct x 10 and reinstalled it as well. However, when i just load 3 wows it plays like it did the other night when i was 5 boxing. So definately its losing power somewhere after adding in the 4th and 5th wow. Now what disturbs me is why didn't it do it the night before..

Another thing i was wondering is in the cpu afinity, there is an option of NONE. if the 5th is set to share with one of the others or left at NONE will that do anything? perhaps an option to use multiple CPUs would take off some of the load of 1 processor having to run 2 wows. I went into task manager and manually set one wow.exe to run on all 4 and the other 4 wow.exes had their own. so the work load would be like 1.25 for each processor. This seemed to make another Small difference.. But i will try what you said after my movie.. had to take a break from this otherwise i might of thrown the computer out the window rofl.

[keyclone]

:D

actually.. if you have a quad core, set 1 wow per cpu.. and put the 5th wow on any random ONE processor. i believe that would be best.

the option of NONE basically allows the system to decide what's best

[Hiarcs]

ok just tried switching the monitors so the main was on the monitor that clones were on and the clones on the old main (through maximizer). The clones did fine for 25-30 fps.. the new main (old clone monitor) still did poorly and the FPS were hovering around 65-70 FPS but felt as though it was still 15 fps.

And this is of course not in outlands.. i can't imagine how much worse it would be in outlands considering its a little more graphic intensive. So the only other option i see is to format again and do a fresh install as thats when i was able to get the good play the other night.. it was right after a recent format..

[StormClouds]

Defrag?

Check your Windows processes running? Such as indexers... anti-virus... anything that might be affecting disk access memory usage or overall CPU usage.

Just out of curiosity, what happens if you just run your WoW the old fashioned way and login with that char?

[Hiarcs]

running wow normally is fine.. FPS and performance is throught he roof. One thing i tried doing before sleeping last night was putting it back to sli mode and trying to set up maximizer with 1 monitor to see if that would work and after i load the 5th wow it totally freezes the computer and i have to manually reset the machine. So that doesn't sound good at all eh

[keyclone]

what is the resolution of the 2 screens you are using?

[Hiarcs]

main monitor is 2500x1600, and second is 1900x1200.

heres an update.. So after switching to SLI mode i get this Rundll.exe error now and when i go to set up the boxing it will freeze. So no doubt me installing that 32 bit application i was mentioning earlier when the server maintenance went down messed everything up. I think it was a 32 bit application and since i am running 64 bit you can guess that is the reason. So system restore didn't help ( just made things worse) ... BUT.. with out sli mode i decided to try setting things up on just 1 monitor the same way i tried with SLI enabled. So 5 quadrans on the 30 inch monitor at 2500 rez. Guess what.. its working fine actually better than that previous night when i was running 2 monitors through 2 gpus. Although i don't really want to play like this i have some hope that after a format things should go back to normal providing i don't install that damn application messing everything up. Only problem is I won't be able to format since i dont' know how to configure the raid 0 hard drives. haha. So until i save up some money and have some computer shop do it i am stuck using 1 monitor 5 boxing with maximizer. So since this forum should only be support for keyclone i will end this thread and let you know if the format helps when i get around to it. Thx for your time in helping me trouble shoot this.

hehe but isn't it weird that 2 GPUs perform worse now than 1 gpu? haha. so something with this rundll error is conflicting when trying to use 2 cards.

[keyclone]

G'evening Hiarcs,

although it may seem it.. these forums are not keyclone support. it's meant for all questions .. and we'll do what we can to help.

btw, doesn't your video card have 2 video slots on it? can't you just plug the 2nd monitor in directly? sure you won't get the nice slick performance of 2 gpus... but 1 gpu that's beefy enough can push 2 monitors... it's already pushing the graphics to the smaller windows...

just a suggestion. we'll, hopefully you have a handle on it.

btw, with today's 3Gbps eSATA drives, you should be able to server 5x wows out of the same folder. you never know until you try.

[Hiarcs]

yeah, i do 5 box with one wow directory. Just tell keyclone to load from the 1 directory works fine for me. I also tried it with 5 directories and don't notice any difference other than the mods and macro not saving but even that i have noticed now that blizzard has a new feature in the macro UI where you can select the characters "personal macro" and even with keyclone running off one directory it saves all the macros for each toon. I was using the default macro section and of course there it wouldn't save.. Just found that out today so i am glad about that.. The computer is being formatted as we speak and i should get it back tomorrow or saturday so i am pretty sure after that things will be back to normal. I will just have to be careful what i install on vista 64 bit. Damn microsoft..

Well as for the gpus how i had it set up originally was the first GPU ran the 30 " monitor at 2500 rez (giving the full power of the card for the main) and the second GPU had the second/third monitors for the clones. And yes the 8800 GTX has 2 video slots for monitors.

but we will see how it goes when i get it back.. once i see it working again then i will know forsure it was my fault for installing a 32 bit application eheh. again thx for the support

[keyclone]

no problem. hopefully you've got it nailed.

btw, when you re-install the OS... there is a possibility you may change your keyclone system-id. if that is the case, just let me know and i'll transfer your license for you , asap.

good luck,

Rob

[Hiarcs]

ok getting my computer back after being formatted.. Are you able to help me with the serial key tonight keyclone?

[keyclone]

yup.. just drop me a PM with your email and new system-id.. and i'll have you back in no time.