Why am I lagging so much?

[ChaoticMonk]

Ok, I've given up trying to figure out what I would most benefit from in terms of improving my setup's performance. My main issue is with the game lagging while I'm running across outland or when in a major city and I'm guessing its due to my hardrive.

Heres what I'm currently running:
Dell Inspiron 530
Intel Q6600 (2.40ghz..not overclocked)
3GB DDR2 667mhz cheapo dell ram (probably 2x1gb+2x512mb...thanks dell)
Geoforce 8800GT 512mb (the OC MSI one from newegg)
Vista 32bit Home Premium
320GB Serial ATA 2 Hard Drive (7200RPM)

My WoW setup is simply 5 clients running from 1 install with low gfx settings on all 5, main running at 60fps (on 22" screen) while slaves are 20fps (split into 4 on 17" screen)

What I would like to know first is if theres any alternations I can do to what I currently have to decrease on the lag I experience without spending major $$$ (strapped for cash at the moment) and then what I could do to improve on the performance down the line (hopefully I can do some minor upgrades before WotlK comes out).

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[elsegundo]

i am guessing this is not lag due to latency.


have you checked out the thread on the SSD experiement?

[ChaoticMonk]

I've been reading up on the SSD test thread but like I said I dont really have the money to pay for it at the moment (and ontop of that anything I do I would need to do x2 as me and my wife are running the exact same setup).

I did however get a reply to a question in the powershell script thread over in the software section so I'll my Symlinking tonight!

[zanthor]

It actually sounds to me like you are hitting your memory cap. 5 clients uses just over 3gb in most configurations, which means that when you spike over 3gb you page memory, huge lag spike.

[magwo]

Yep, MOAR MEMORIEZ NEEDED. With Vista, go for at least 4 GB, preferrably 5-8 GB.

[zanthor]

Vista 32bit Home Premium

Upgrading to 4GB will gain you JUST barely enough memory to work most the time, in Shattrah you'll have problems still unless you run a really basic system.

Upgrading beyond 4GB will require you upgrade your OS as well, this can be a daunting task for someone who doesn't understand why they need to upgrade from 32 to 64 bit OS in order to use more memory...

Depends how comfortable you are nuking your system .

[magwo]

Right. Yes, definitely go for Vista 64. If you are ever going "high end" multiboxing on that rig, you will need 5+ GBs.

[ChaoticMonk]

unfortunatly I didnt know enough about the differences between 32bit and 64bit so I stupidly selected 32bit when ordering my dell to save some money.

I have no issues nuking my OS and upgrading except for shelling out $150~for the OS and then another $100~ or so for more ram is abit much.

Would taking advantage of Vista's ReadyBoost help at all with this issue?

Also, I remember seeing a list of wow settings to further improve performance past what the sliders do in WoW's interface bt I'm having a hard time finding it through the forum's search. I am a eye candy kind of person so if I wouldn't gain much from nuking it I'd rather not =/

[ChaoticMonk]

well I got Symlinks set up to 5 Wow dirs but unfortunatly the performance gain was minimal. It did however improve launch/exit times alot.

Will getting a SSD drive really make that much of a difference? I mean if I'm running out of ram wouldn't getting an SSD drive just fill up my ram quicker?

[magwo]

I am 99% certain that your problems stem from having too little memory. Nothing else.