IFinding the bottleneck in performance.
I have been doing a few experiments while im at work with no internet access to actually play. I started up resource monitor so I can see the actual and average CPU usage of my 5 wow.exe processes.
When all the wow.exe windows are in "windowed" mode and maximized, they are all using the same amount of CPU usage (about 12% each while sitting at the logon screens).. That tells me that even though I have 4 windows buried behind the main window (they are all maximized), they are all actually being rendered by the video card, causing huge strain on the GPU and CPU. I can put them in a small resolution but if they are in maximized windowed mode, they automatically run at whatever resolution the window size is set at, so if they are windowed and maximized, they are running at the resolution I have my operating system set too, even if I have the wow configuration options set to a lower resolution.
If however I take them out of windowed mode, then only the top window will be consuming extra CPU and GPU cycles, since the windows underneath aren't being rendered. The windows underneath would only use like 1% CPU usage each. Of course, once you got into actual game play that number would go up since there would be an increase in network communcations and physics, but nothing even remotely close to the CPU (and GPU) requirements of rendering the video. I imagine if your running vista and your running in windowed mode, then your also rendering the desktop of the OS, even if it's not visible. But if your running wow in full screen (not windowed), then I think that the it would take 100% of the GPU to itself and not waste anything on the desktop.
I like to keep them in windowed mode however, so swapping windows is instananeous. I am going to do some more research and experiments, and try to find out a way of making the game run better when your running multiple games at once. I am going to take a look at reducing the quality of the rendering on the fly, but I don't think it will make that big of a difference. I remember seeing the macros that would change the render distance and spell effects, ect... with the /script command. I am thinking of possibly altering the size of the background windows to as small as possible, then when swapping to a window maximizing it on the fly. I am curious as to how long it would take to do that on the fly. Seems to go pretty quick if your not in maximized mode and your manually dragging the windows bigger with the mouse. I wonder if that would help out with the CPU usage of windows running behind the main window.
Has anyone else done any kind of research into this and can offer any knowledge?
