Unable to run two clients under Vista properly

Hi,

I've been dual-clienting on one machine for just over a month, on my desktop machine. The machine is:
Windows XP Pro
AMD 64 2500+
2GB RAM
Radeon x1950 Pro 512MB

I am able to run WoW at top settings with decent framesrates in single client mode, and I can continue to run it with two WoW clients open, although my framerates do drop quite low. Average around 20fps, but can vary up and down. It's playable, but not ideal.

Now comes my problem. I bought a new laptop, the Dell XPS 1530 and was obliged to get Vista with it (another topic). So the specs for the laptop are much better than the desktop:
Vista Home Premium
Intel Core2 Duo T9300 2.50GHz
3GB RAM
NVIDIA 8600M GT 256MB (driver NVIDIA 7.15.11.5663)

Now I was hoping this laptop would improve my dual client experience because the video card and CPU are apparently more powerful. In single client mode I definately get better performance, so I think the machine is powerful enough.

Now my problem. As *soon* as I open the second copy of WoW, both instances immediately become very very choppy and sluggish. It's not the framerate, this even happens on the login screen and my keypresses entering my username and password are even delayed. This isn't just a slight delay, it's very noticeable and makes it impossible to play WoW with two clients open. I start the clients in windowed mode.

I'm hoping this is a known issue with a solution. I have tried searching and read many posts here but didn't find anyone else reporting it. I wasn't too sure what keywords to search on because everyone seems to be complaining about FPS where this is just a general performance issue.

I'm tempted to create a second partition and install XP on the laptop to try it out because I'm sure it's not the hardware. Could be drivers of something or other, but I'm trying to keep the default Dell setup as long as I can. I'll change it obviously if that's where the problem lies.

Any help appreciated. Thanks.

Well, sorry to answer my own post but it seems that I have it working. Setting the processor affinity under task manager -> processes -> right click wow.exe did the trick. However, all is not happy in mankland, it seems that I get pretty much the same framerates on my laptop as I have on my desktop with two clients open. I guess the machine just isn't enough of an upgrade to do the trick. 20 fps (actually mostly lower) is just annoying to play under, I envy you guys who can get decent framerates on one machine.

Do you have a shitload of addons on your second account? Did you remember to turn down the graphics settings on your alt? Did you remember to set the MAXFPSBK on them?

Yup, plenty of addons on both and same graphics settings on both. That is because I don't have a main/alt as such. I use autohotkey and have my macros and keybindings set up in such a way that I can easily switch between the characters and the keys will forward exactly the same and gameplay won't be affected. I play a priest / warlock combo and can use either as the main depending on what is required. I'm not sure I'll like it, but I'll try making one a main and the other an alt with no addons and graphics turned down. Thanks

I would do some research into your particular video card and see what people are saying, as its a mobile version and Dell usually has its own specific drivers, even though its an nVidia card. Your symptoms sound video related to me.

The MAXFPSBK setting is probably the one that'll give you the most benefit.

Argh. I'm sorry to bump this again, but I wanted to reply before I went to bed for the night. I don't think setting the affinity totally solves the issue, if at all. I'm having the same problem again and the issue seems to appear when I hit the maximise button on the top right of the window (I play in non fixed windowed mode). Am I being a complete noob? I like to play in this mode because it allows me to easily see the taskbar and switch between wow instances.

I looked but didn't see anything in here about what resolution your desktop is set to or what resolution your WoW clients are set to. That might illuminate some things. ;)

Mank, it might help if you could determine whether the WoW's are running slowly or whether they aren't getting allocated CPU time. You might be able to tell by watching the processes tab of Task Manager as they run and keeping your eye on the CPU column. Ideally System Idle Process should have the highest number in that column followed by the two WoW's. If a third process is higher than the WoW's, I would shut it down. If the WoW's have very high numbers that's a sign that they are running slowly rather than getting squeezed out by some other process.

I experimented with this and discovered that when an open WoW window becomes completely covered by another window, its CPU usage goes up by more than three times. I'm doing this in XP but it matches what you say about maximizing a window. I found a work around -- when you maximize one WoW window, minimize the other one. This prevents the covered window from demanding a crazy amount of cpu time. I don't know if this applies to your situation but maybe it will help.