Where is my hardware bottleneck? *5 Boxing on single PC*

I'm running the following setup and while everything works fine outside of Dalaran, IN Dalaran sucks big donkey balls when I have all 5 guys trying to ride around.

Intel Q9550 (quad core @ 2.83Ghz)

8GB DDR2 @ 800MHz

2 - 32GB SSD's in RAID 0 (wow is installed here, symlinked)

Radeon 4870 - 512MB (overclocked to 790 GPU clock, 1050 memory clock)

I run all 5 on a single 22" monitor. I use Innerspace. Main window is full settings locked to 45 FPS max (1680x1050), alt windows are lowest settings, locked to 15FPS max (800x600).

Anyone able to tell me where the bottleneck is? I avoid Dalaran if I can because the frame rates suck.

When I check the GPU usage it never goes above 75% or 80% when all windows are going, even in Dalaran.

My CPU usage seems to sit around 60% as well.

I'm confused as to where the bottleneck is, anyone able to help?

Would a 4870 - 1GB help?

I would guess your GPU. Not sure how appropriate it is to box with ATI cards.. I have Nvidia and it works.

Should I just expect lag in Dalaran?

I disabled my page file in Vista (64) and if I turn up the draw distance to full on my slaves Innerspace crashes because I run out of RAM! (Works fine in instances, but on a gryphon or in Dalaran it dies)

You don't have enough video RAM. 1Gb is minimum for Dalaran.

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Originally Posted by 'DLoweinc',index.php?page=Thread&postID=180358#pos t180358

Should I just expect lag in Dalaran?

I disabled my page file in Vista (64) and if I turn up the draw distance to full on my slaves Innerspace crashes because I run out of RAM! (Works fine in instances, but on a gryphon or in Dalaran it dies)

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I would recommend enabling the page file and setting it to 500 mb. There are certain applications that require a page file being present and if it isn't there they will address your physical ram. This is why you ran out of physical memory. Been there, done that. Use a page file.

Another thing to look at if youre using an ATi card is to be sure that in the in-game video settings you have "Vertical Synch" unchecked. Checked or unchecked dictates whether my rig can run 5 toons or not. Also I've noticed server lag (or lack thereof) from different realms can be the difference of seamless or choppy. My experience so far unfortunately doesnt include Dalaran, but I've been (keyclone) 5 boxing on 2 monitors from a 512MB Radeon 4850 / Q6600 CPU / 4GB PC6400.

also, +1 on using a page file ^^

How bad IS dalaran? Honestly I don't think you can expect too great of FPS in dalaran. I have similar specs to you (except no SSDs) and I generally get around 15-18FPS in dalaran running around the streets, and ~30-40 inside of small buildings. I don't really expect anything better than that and its fine for me since I'm never in Dalaran for more than 15 minutes.

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Originally Posted by 'weeep',index.php?page=Thread&postID=180369#post18 0369

You don't have enough video RAM. 1Gb is minimum for Dalaran.

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What is your source for this information? I'd love to test your theory out but I haven't figured out a way to track video memory usage in Vista.

Reinstall directx and video drivers. I find that helps with my 4870 1gb.

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Originally Posted by 'weeep',index.php?page=Thread&postID=180369#post18 0369

You don't have enough video RAM. 1Gb is minimum for Dalaran.

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Funny, I get maxed out FPS on my slaves and around 30 on my main while in dalaran.

Using a 9600GT 512MB.

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Originally Posted by 'Thulos',index.php?page=Thread&postID=180444#post1 80444

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Originally Posted by 'weeep',index.php?page=Thread&postID=180369#post18 0369

You don't have enough video RAM. 1Gb is minimum for Dalaran.

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What is your source for this information? I'd love to test your theory out but I haven't figured out a way to track video memory usage in Vista.

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WoW was using around 200M video RAM a while ago before 3.0 patch which brought us some new fancy stuff definitely consuming even more RAM. I measured it on my old rig at 1280x1024 in Shattrah using RivaTuner under WinXP. Now with higher resolution and higher video settings my guess is that in Dalaran your main client alone is using at least around 300-400M, I dont have XP installed anymore to test it :( Add 4x slave clients that are using video RAM too and you end up much higher than your 512M.
One more notice: after I installed WDDM1.1 drivers which offer better video memory management, almost all my lags in Dalaran on 1024Mb 4870 are gone. So my guess is that 5-boxed WoW is using slightly more than 1Gb video memory and these drivers could save some memory enough to fit into videocard's installed RAM.

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Originally Posted by 'Sajuuk',index.php?page=Thread&postID=180452#post1 80452

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Originally Posted by 'weeep',index.php?page=Thread&postID=180369#post18 0369

You don't have enough video RAM. 1Gb is minimum for Dalaran.

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Funny, I get maxed out FPS on my slaves and around 30 on my main while in dalaran.

Using a 9600GT 512MB.

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It depends on your resolution, AA\AF level and texture quality settings. Of course for example 1280x1024 0xAA\0xAF all min will consume much less video memory than mine 2560x1600 4xAA\16xAF all max ;)

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Originally Posted by 'weeep',index.php?page=Thread&postID=180564#post18 0564

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Originally Posted by 'Thulos',index.php?page=Thread&postID=180444#post1 80444

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Originally Posted by 'weeep',index.php?page=Thread&postID=180369#post18 0369

You don't have enough video RAM. 1Gb is minimum for Dalaran.

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What is your source for this information? I'd love to test your theory out but I haven't figured out a way to track video memory usage in Vista.

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WoW was using around 200M video RAM a while ago before 3.0 patch which brought us some new fancy stuff definitely consuming even more RAM. I measured it on my old rig at 1280x1024 in Shattrah using RivaTuner under WinXP. Now with higher resolution and higher video settings my guess is that in Dalaran your main client alone is using at least around 300-400M, I dont have XP installed anymore to test it :( Add 4x slave clients that are using video RAM too and you end up much higher than your 512M.
One more notice: after I installed WDDM1.1 drivers which offer better video memory management, almost all my lags in Dalaran on 1024Mb 4870 are gone. So my guess is that 5-boxed WoW is using slightly more than 1Gb video memory and these drivers could save some memory enough to fit into videocard's installed RAM.

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I'm sorry but what you are basing this on is pure speculation. Your "guess" may be accurate but you have nothing to back it up. I would love to experiment with your theory but under Vista video memory utilization is not available. Your original statement was worded like it was fact when in reality it is nothing more than an educated guess. Normally I wouldn't bother pointing it out but your statement may cause someone to go out and buy a $500 video card when they may not need one. :thumbdown:

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Originally Posted by 'moosejaw',index.php?page=Thread&postID=180373#pos t180373

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Originally Posted by 'DLoweinc',index.php?page=Thread&postID=180358#pos t180358

Should I just expect lag in Dalaran?

I disabled my page file in Vista (64) and if I turn up the draw distance to full on my slaves Innerspace crashes because I run out of RAM! (Works fine in instances, but on a gryphon or in Dalaran it dies)

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I would recommend enabling the page file and setting it to 500 mb. There are certain applications that require a page file being present and if it isn't there they will address your physical ram. This is why you ran out of physical memory. Been there, done that. Use a page file.

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I have been contemplating creating a ramdisk on my SSD's for the pagefile. I have been following some advice on the OCZ SSD Forum as far as utilizing SSD's in general. My goal is to move my whole boot partition onto the SSD's (as well as wow).

I have tried using a 4gig readyboost drive with this so that it could swap to that if needed (i see it use it, the flash drive activity light gives it away), but no performance increase. perhaps it is helping...

I noticed a moderate increase (5-6FPS increase) when i moved my innerspace install onto my SSD array instead of my hitachi HDD.

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Originally Posted by 'Hachoo',index.php?page=Thread&postID=180413#post1 80413

How bad IS dalaran? Honestly I don't think you can expect too great of FPS in dalaran. I have similar specs to you (except no SSDs) and I generally get around 15-18FPS in dalaran running around the streets, and ~30-40 inside of small buildings. I don't really expect anything better than that and its fine for me since I'm never in Dalaran for more than 15 minutes.

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on my main guy it is anywhere from 10-40, but usually around 20 when i am in the streets. If I am in a building it is maybe 20% higher. I don't check my slaves all that often unless they break follow, but I would say 10 to 12 for them on average.

I just did a full reinstall (game + mods) and changed my unit frames from pitbull to perl classic and seem to have picked up better frame rates. IE less breaks on follow (haven't had one in dalaran yet, only while on flying mounts)

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Originally Posted by 'Tombs',index.php?page=Thread&postID=180446#post18 0446

Reinstall directx and video drivers. I find that helps with my 4870 1gb.

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Originally Posted by 'weeep',index.php?page=Thread&postID=180565#post18 0565

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Originally Posted by 'Sajuuk',index.php?page=Thread&postID=180452#post1 80452

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 'weeep',index.php?page=Thread&postID=180369#post18 0369

You don't have enough video RAM. 1Gb is minimum for Dalaran.

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Funny, I get maxed out FPS on my slaves and around 30 on my main while in dalaran.

Using a 9600GT 512MB.

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It depends on your resolution, AA\AF level and texture quality settings. Of course for example 1280x1024 0xAA\0xAF all min will consume much less video memory than mine 2560x1600 4xAA\16xAF all max ;)

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I'm at 1680x1050, 1xAA, 24bit color/depth for my main and 800x600, 1xAA, 16bit color/depth for my alts

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Originally Posted by 'Thulos',index.php?page=Thread&postID=180585#post1 80585

I'm sorry but what you are basing this on is pure speculation. Your "guess" may be accurate but you have nothing to back it up. I would love to experiment with your theory but under Vista video memory utilization is not available. Your original statement was worded like it was fact when in reality it is nothing more than an educated guess. Normally I wouldn't bother pointing it out but your statement may cause someone to go out and buy a $500 video card when they may not need one.

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I thought it is obvious that 5x clients each consuming >100M VRAM would require >512M card. But well, if it is not obvious for someone, he can spend much more for useless SSDs or something else and still achieve nothing.

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Originally Posted by 'weeep',index.php?page=Thread&postID=180654#post18 0654

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 'Thulos',index.php?page=Thread&postID=180585#post1 80585

I'm sorry but what you are basing this on is pure speculation. Your "guess" may be accurate but you have nothing to back it up. I would love to experiment with your theory but under Vista video memory utilization is not available. Your original statement was worded like it was fact when in reality it is nothing more than an educated guess. Normally I wouldn't bother pointing it out but your statement may cause someone to go out and buy a $500 video card when they may not need one.

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I thought it is obvious that 5x clients each consuming >100M VRAM would require >512M card. But well, if it is not obvious for someone, he can spend much more for useless SSDs or something else and still achieve nothing.

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It's not obvious because it is possible that textures are only cached one time instead of caching the same textures 5x times. I also did not say that you were wrong, I just stated that you had no proof and should not make blanket statements as if they were fact. If you worded your original statement in such a way that it was your opinion that a 1gig card was needed then I would have had no problem with your post. If you can give me a way to help with proving your theory I will be more than willing to work with you on this.

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Originally Posted by 'Thulos',index.php?page=Thread&postID=180721#post1 80721

It's not obvious because it is possible that textures are only cached one time instead of caching the same textures 5x times.

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Short: it is not possible.
Long: textures can be cached as long as some app knows that they come from same source. That's why symlinking works: the OS file cache manager knows that 5 apps referencing their data files are actually referencing the same file and gives them cached data instead of reading disk over and over again. But when app uses D3D interfaces to render data, there are no "texture files" at this point. There are some binary structures and neither OS video driver nor D3D manager know their source, they only know that some app (or 5x apps) asked to render some data.
WDDM1.1 changes it a bit: application can tell video driver that it wants to render multiple instances of the same object. So in this case you can actually save some memory, because video driver won't allocate it for all instances. But again, it works only inside one app and it requires WDDM1.1 drivers which are only available in beta version under Windows 7 for now.

As for OP's problem, try setting lowest possible graphics quality settings both in game and video driver without changing your resolution and see if it helps. If it will, then you definitely lack video RAM, since your GPU is currently not at 100% load.

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Originally Posted by 'weeep',index.php?page=Thread&postID=180732#post18 0732

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Originally Posted by 'Thulos',index.php?page=Thread&postID=180721#post1 80721

It's not obvious because it is possible that textures are only cached one time instead of caching the same textures 5x times.

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Short: it is not possible.
Long: textures can be cached as long as some app knows that they come from same source. That's why symlinking works: the OS file cache manager knows that 5 apps referencing their data files are actually referencing the same file and gives them cached data instead of reading disk over and over again. But when app uses D3D interfaces to render data, there are no "texture files" at this point. There are some binary structures and neither OS video driver nor D3D manager know their source, they only know that some app (or 5x apps) asked to render some data.
WDDM1.1 changes it a bit: application can tell video driver that it wants to render multiple instances of the same object. So in this case you can actually save some memory, because video driver won't allocate it for all instances. But again, it works only inside one app and it requires WDDM1.1 drivers which are only available in beta version under Windows 7 for now.

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Thanks for this explanation, this does shoot down the shared texture memory thing. I still would like to have some way to validate your claims. I may load into my XP 64 instance and get it up to date to 5 box. I wish Vista would give us a way to check video memory usage. The only nvidia card I know of that gives us more than 1gig of memory is the very expensive gtx 295.

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Originally Posted by 'weeep',index.php?page=Thread&postID=180745#post18 0745

As for OP's problem, try setting lowest possible graphics quality settings both in game and video driver without changing your resolution and see if it helps. If it will, then you definitely lack video RAM, since your GPU is currently not at 100% load.

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Thanks I'll try this

OP - If you haven't already, make sure each instance of WoW is using a different core. By default, WoW only uses the first 2 cores. It is possible that you're pegging your first 2 cores and the other 2 aren't being used much.