Video artifacts with running 2 copies of WoW

[Nitro]

When you see the tearing start check out the performance tab of your task manager. It could be that you have very low memory available. I had this same issue with several 9800 gtx's and gtx 280 and i thought all my cards were bad. installed more ram and had no more issues.

[Ellusionist]

I don't think it's the driver as I've tried a couple, though maybe not enough to say for sure. It's definitely not faulty hardware because it only happens when two instances of wow are running at the same time - never when it's just one or any other game.
It could just be too much for my card though...

Out of curiosity Slayer - what vid card was your friend using before and after, and how many instances of wow?

it's certainly possible that your card is having heat issues. any kind of artifact can be caused by excess heat, and this could explain why running 2 instances (= more stress on the system) causes artifacts when one doesn't.

pengwyn hit the nail right on the head. I kept scrolling through the thread to see if anyone mentioned heat.

My very first guess was heat issues. Pre-Shattrath city multiboxing, I played 5 accounts on a Macbook Pro running Windows XP. When it got hot (or I went to an area neat Shattrath that was graphics-intensive), the graphics would start glitching.

The only other thing associated with the problems you're having, which I highly doubt is the case, is a bad DirectX install or unstable video drivers. 99.9999% of drivers and/or DirectX installs that successfully finish installing are just fine, but I guess you could have some weird software glitch going on.

[Frappuccino]

Thanks for the responses everyone - I'm quite convinced it's just heat as my card is nothing special being a 9600GT. This is something that probably wouldn't happen if I do get my super-rig with 2x 280GTX's and if it does i can always invest in some cooling measures.

Re the never reinstalling wow comment - I'm in the same boat as you, I don't think I've reinstalled the game for about 2 or 3 years.. I'll give it a shot deleting the files you mentioned - cheers.

Edit: to Nitro - I have 4gb ram (albeit cheap..) so I doubt that's a problem !

[Frappuccino]

Hi all,

Just FYI on this - deleting the config.wtf file worked!

[Heenan]

Glad to hear

[dbick]

I had this same weird "spiky tearing" happen just yesterday on a nvidia 8600gt. I am about ready to move my team (3box) to Northrend so I was checking my video drivers and noticed that my current (fatality) drivers were a few builds behind current. I downloaded and installed the newest drivers and much to my dismay, this spiky tearing effect started as soon as I loaded the second client. I tried a few settings and things but nothing helped untill I found my orginal cd and reinstalled the drivers that came with the card. Now things are back to normal. So in my case at least, it seemed to be a driver issue.

*edit* Now I am wondering what would happen if I deleted that config.wtf file and then installed the newest drivers....hmmmm

[pengwynman]

I had this same weird "spiky tearing" happen just yesterday on a nvidia 8600gt. I am about ready to move my team (3box) to Northrend so I was checking my video drivers and noticed that my current (fatality) drivers were a few builds behind current. I downloaded and installed the newest drivers and much to my dismay, this spiky tearing effect started as soon as I loaded the second client. I tried a few settings and things but nothing helped untill I found my orginal cd and reinstalled the drivers that came with the card. Now things are back to normal. So in my case at least, it seemed to be a driver issue.

*edit* Now I am wondering what would happen if I deleted that config.wtf file and then installed the newest drivers....hmmmm

i never install video drivers from the cd, they're always outdated and i've had blue screens with them before, even on a completely new un-tweaked install of windows :P

[welwyn]

are you stacking the clients on top of each other or are they spread over the screen? before i was having the same problem where the gfx card was overheating when trying to run 4 clients on top of each other causeing them to mix artifacts from 1 to the other causing some very groovy patterns! however when i used maximizer to spread the clients around the screen it stopped. that could be that maximizer was lowering the FPs wanted by each client lowering the load on the GPU and therefore lowering heat or it may have just stopped them from stacking. might be worth a go if your currently "stacking" the clients.

[vrill]

deleting config.wtf totally worked!!

I had upgraded my hardware to a 9800GT from a 7950GTO, and then installed WotLK.

Thanks so much!!!

[joedeath332]

Woot i am running and 8800 gts 512 and had the exact same problems , and yes you got it DELETING THE CONFIG.WTF worked for me btw running PIP , and prior to this had used the same wow folder over the peroid of a few yers , and all seemed fine full screeen , is only now i try multi boxing and play windowed this problem arose.