Odd issue when swapping w/ isboxer

Hey all,

I put together my new PC and set up WoW x 5 with isboxer. Having an odd issue when I swap windows:

Using GTX 580, SSD, 12Gb ram (6 x 2 gb), ASUS x58 sabertooth

2 x monitors (not identical screen size)

When I've got all 5 toons loaded up, main on the big monitor, 4 slaves on the smaller one, usually when I switch windows, it swaps without issue, no problem. However, it's having issues where all of a sudden I will switch, and the window I switch to will start flickering with multi-colors around the edges. I can still see the game and it functions, just with flickering. The flickering will either resolve itself or go away after I repeatedly swap a few times.

2nd swapping issue I noticed is, I swapped windows, and instead of flickering, I get a black window, then when I try to swap back, the original window goes black.. then WoW crashes on those accounts and I get the "cannot read...." wow system crash error.

Anybody had this sort of problem and know where I should start troubleshooting? My first thought is RAM issue since the WoW crash pop-up refers to a reading problem, but I didn't write down the message. I'll write it down next time it happens.

*edit* I found a similar thread below with a similar issue but no definitive answer. Anybody figure this out yet?

Drivers, overheating, power supply, RAM [in no particular order]

Also, running mismatching resolutions off of the same card as of the 4xx generation puts more stress on the card unless nVidia
has recently fixed something.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fenril

Drivers, overheating, power supply, RAM [in no particular order]

Also, running mismatching resolutions off of the same card as of the 4xx generation puts more stress on the card unless nVidia
has recently fixed something.

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Ah, forgot to mention the PSU. 850W. Have latest GPU driver installed. Am watching the temps on speedfan. GPU is mid 70s while 5 boxing, w/o a spike around the time I see the problem.

I think I'll plug the GPU into my other desktop that's been stable 5boxing (just slower) and see if it introduces problems. If not, I'll focus on the RAM.. pain in the ass...

memtest 86 didn't find any issues, so maybe it's the GPU

Whats resolutions on the main monitor and the resolutions on the 4 tiles slave monitor?

Hows the sabertooth working otherwise?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sam DeathWalker

Whats resolutions on the main monitor and the resolutions on the 4 tiles slave monitor?

Hows the sabertooth working otherwise?

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I dropped the slave monitor and start putting them all on 1 monitor, so same resolution. Still having the issues. Otherwise, the motherboard is working fine. In fact the GPU is working fine for everything except multiboxing. I can play single box with no problems. I tried shifting back the clock on the GPU to standard factory settings, but that didn't do it. Maybe I'll RMA it.

Well if you tile with isboxer I guess the ususal is to have a main and 4 windows to the right all in a row. If those are rendered at the same resolution as the main and you are running like 1920 X 1200 or some really high resolution you might well run into problems even with the high quality video card you have, not to mention effects and view distance.

If they are all 1024 X 786 or soish I am confident your card will handle.

If you use IsBoxer and have different resolutions on the main and slaves you will get a delay while the computer figures out which is the main, places it in the forground and reders it at the proper resolution.

Kinda hard to point the finget at the gpu if its working otherwise, although it could be video ram that you don't use cept when multiboxing.

Try running 3 clients on one screen (main and two slaves) and see what happens. Or run 5 at a lower resolution (but all the same) then you usually use.

Good idea. I'll give it a try in the morning. Just downloaded the beta drivers and installed, and am currently downloading a GPU-heavy FPS game to try taxing the GPU w/ a single-box game and see how it holds up.

I used to have the same issue ramdomly on one of my slave windows. to solve it I just ended up dialling back on the gfx settings from ultra to high on each of the toons.

haven't had the problem since.. hope this helps you

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mikekim

I used to have the same issue ramdomly on one of my slave windows. to solve it I just ended up dialling back on the gfx settings from ultra to high on each of the toons.

haven't had the problem since.. hope this helps you

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Thanks. I've tried this too, which seems to have helped a bit, but I'm still having the issues. I've tried changing driver versions, graphics settings, GPU clock speeds/fan speeds, etc. The problem still pops up after a few mins of playing while multiboxing. I've found a lot of reports of people with WoW issues w/ nvidia cards.. The next step is to buy a more expensive PSU and see if that helps.. and if not, I guess I'll switch back to AMD/ATI.

The 580 is nice otherwise.. plays crysis2 on max settings w/o a hiccup.. Just too bad I spent so much $$ on a card that'll do everything except the one thing I wanted it to do :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sildenafil

Hey all,

I put together my new PC and set up WoW x 5 with isboxer. Having an odd issue when I swap windows:

Using GTX 580, SSD, 12Gb ram (6 x 2 gb), ASUS x58 sabertooth

2 x monitors (not identical screen size)

When I've got all 5 toons loaded up, main on the big monitor, 4 slaves on the smaller one, usually when I switch windows, it swaps without issue, no problem. However, it's having issues where all of a sudden I will switch, and the window I switch to will start flickering with multi-colors around the edges. I can still see the game and it functions, just with flickering. The flickering will either resolve itself or go away after I repeatedly swap a few times.

2nd swapping issue I noticed is, I swapped windows, and instead of flickering, I get a black window, then when I try to swap back, the original window goes black.. then WoW crashes on those accounts and I get the "cannot read...." wow system crash error.

Anybody had this sort of problem and know where I should start troubleshooting? My first thought is RAM issue since the WoW crash pop-up refers to a reading problem, but I didn't write down the message. I'll write it down next time it happens.

*edit* I found a similar thread below with a similar issue but no definitive answer. Anybody figure this out yet?

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I could have missed it but what Operating system are you using and what directory is your wow folder in

I ask becuase if its (Vista/win 7) and its using the apps folder to run the game you could have read permissions and not have write permisions that will cuase WoW to crash

Easy fix usaly to that is move wow outside of your Program Files Directory.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Aragent

I could have missed it but what Operating system are you using and what directory is your wow folder in

I ask becuase if its (Vista/win 7) and its using the apps folder to run the game you could have read permissions and not have write permisions that will cuase WoW to crash

Easy fix usaly to that is move wow outside of your Program Files Directory.

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Running Win 7 home premium 64bit

That's interesting. It's in whatever it defaulted to when I installed it. I'll check what that actually turned out to be. I wonder, though - if that were the issue, shouldn't it affect me when I'm running a single copy of the game? I can run a single instance w/ 0 problems. It's just when I run 5, and even then it only starts happening after I've swapped b/t windows a few times.

fyi:

my Nvidia driver version 266.58 (win 7 home premium x64)
850w Enermax Galaxy PSU
my wow is run from direct from E:\ (the only thing on a 64GB SSD)

As I said before I only had the issue when all windows where running at ultra settings, now they are running on high (with low shadows) i have no issues. (spent a good 7-8 hours playing over the weekend, with multiple window swaps)

i would like to add that WoW becomes a CPU limited game faster then others.

Your graphics card should easily be able to run 5 clients.

What I would advise is to tone down the AA settings to 1x. Minimal impact on what it looks like, but big impact on performance. What I do myself is that all slaves are set to a very low graphics setting as I almost never use them on the main window anyway. My Master has settings to Ultra ;p

The artifacts you describe are usually a result of a faulty card (overheating or not) or driver. It has nothing to do with ISboxer itself.

Turning down the settings on your slaves might stress the card less which could result in a prevention of these artifacts... tho I suspect they will come anyway ;p

I found an obscure post on the net about out-of-date integrated audio and NIC drivers interfering with video drivers. I updated the driver on my integrated NIC and it seems to have fixed the problem (at least for now. still a lot of testing to do)

weird how these components are interrelated..