The final Upgrade Choice.. Need Tech Advice

[pinotnoir]

Goal: Run 5 warcraft games without getting crap fps. Current FPS is avg 5-10 fps in dalaran and 30-1fps in wintersgrasp.

Current setup: alts fps set to 15. main set to 40 in keyclone. All graphics settings set to low.

Addons: atlasloot, autoprofitx, bagnon, bankstack, beancounter, cartographer, cast time, chronos, combat caller, easy mail, equip compare, informant, jamba, khaos, ac2 library, outfitter, proximo, titan panel, vanaskos, & deadly boss mods.

� Vista 64 installed on Seagate Barracuda
� Intel q6600 processor default clock
� One Wow Folder installed on WD Raptor Drive
� Keyclone with 5 maximizer windows. One on the 24inch and 2 each on the 20inch lcd�s.
� 3 lcd monitors � 24inch main & two 20 inch sides
� Asus p5w dh deluxe motherboard two pcie slots. Main slot 16x second slot 8x.
� 8gig of corsair ddr2 ram
� Two Sapphire 3870 Toxic 512meg ram video cards.


Option #1
Buy a 4850x2 Sapphire card with 4 DVI outs. Or buy two 4870 1gig cards using them the same way I have the 3870�s setup.

Option #2
Buy Option #1 and a SSD IBM 80g and move my warcraft folder to it.

Option #3
Gut my old AMD 64 3500 machine and use it for a new system. Combine my current system and the new system to 5 box with 2 pc�s. Host 3 warcrafts on the new system and 2 on the current one. Crossfire my two 3870�s to run one of my 20 inch monitors with 2 wows.

Purchase the following:

� I7 920 chip
� New i7 motherboard
� 12 gigs of ddr3 ram
� 4870 video card
� SSD drive for my wow directory
� WD raptor for storage/windows vista 64 install
� KVM switch
� Keyclone register for new pc
� 16ft DVI cable so I can reach my second pc.

Option #3 is going to be the most costly of the options. Let me know what you guys think would be my most bang for the buck upgrade. At this point playing wow is hell. I get 5fps in dalaran and during heavy battle in wintersgrasp I get 1fps. This is unacceptable and needs to be fixed. Thanks for any help.

[Tsunami]

since i am a value shopper.

everyone is doing crap FPS in dalaran and wintergrasp. if you are sure it is something wrong with your system i would go to best buy and get the 2 4850's or 4870's and try it out in your system. if the problem is fixed than great, end of thread. if you still have the problem or a small increase than you can always return those cards and get your money back. free troubleshooting. just say your system doesn't support ati, bye bye.

here is another free trouble shoot for you. switch your monitors around. get rid of one 20". put your main on one card with the 20" and your alts on the other card with the 24"...see if that helps.

[pinotnoir]

since i am a value shopper.

everyone is doing crap FPS in dalaran and wintergrasp. if you are sure it is something wrong with your system i would go to best buy and get the 2 4850's or 4870's and try it out in your system. if the problem is fixed than great, end of thread. if you still have the problem or a small increase than you can always return those cards and get your money back. free troubleshooting. just say your system doesn't support ati, bye bye.

here is another free trouble shoot for you. switch your monitors around. get rid of one 20". put your main on one card with the 20" and your alts on the other card with the 24"...see if that helps.

I took your advice on the free trouble shooting. I disabled a 20 inch monitor. I setup my 24inch on my first 3870 card with 4 maximizer for wow. I setup my 20 inch for 1 maximier wow on my my second 3870 card. So I have 1 card running 4 1 card running 1. I made sure all my graphics settins were low. I disabled all addons and logged into dalaran. The fps went up a small amount. I have fps capped at 15fps for alts and 40 on main. I have two characters who have around 5fps no matter if they are mains or alts. The other 3 float around 13-15fps as alts just standing in place. Those two characters who are low fps have something messed up I cannot find. This test should have put them all the same fps when they are alts and more fps if they are mains.

At this point I dont know how much a new video card would do to help. This is a high pop server and this test should have increased the fps more.

[Yo-Yo Freak]

have you tried anywhere other then dalaran? i have read on here some where that some people have had alot of trouble there, like they couldn't log more then 2 charaters at a time on in Dalaran. they would have to log 2 on at a time and move them out of the city then do it again till all there characters were on. maybe someplace other then there would produce better more even fram rates, i mean nobody gets good fps in dalaran, even single boxing lol.

[Powerwar]

Here is my setup. I do steady 45 - 60 fps in dalaran with my main and 30 fps with my slaves because seems they get capped on 30 fps when "minimized".


MoBo = Assus Striker Extreme (comparable to yours)
8 Gb RAM ddr2 @ 800 (worse than you)
1 x Nvidia 8800 GTS (you have two comparable video cards, so you should do better)
Intel q9650 cpu default clock (yours is comparable to mine)

What you need to do is configure core affinity in wow. By default all your wow instances will use only the first two cores, so you will have 2 cores at 100% and other 2 cores at 0% usage. This alone will give you a significant boost.

Then buy more hard drives. I have one system HD with the main wow instance, then a secondary HD with two other wow instances and then a raid 5 array with other two wow instances. This will not speed your game much, but will reduce the load time when you hearth to dalaran or zone/instance loads.

The only upgrade you need is to buy more hard disks (one more will do the work, but two more will give you similar performance that playing a single toon (no multiboxing) on this same machine you have.
The CPU affinity will fix the frame rates completely.

[pinotnoir]

Here is my setup. I do steady 45 - 60 fps in dalaran with my main and 30 fps with my slaves because seems they get capped on 30 fps when "minimized".


MoBo = Assus Striker Extreme (comparable to yours)
8 Gb RAM ddr2 @ 800 (worse than you)
1 x Nvidia 8800 GTS (you have two comparable video cards, so you should do better)
Intel q9650 cpu default clock (yours is comparable to mine)

What you need to do is configure core affinity in wow. By default all your wow instances will use only the first two cores, so you will have 2 cores at 100% and other 2 cores at 0% usage. This alone will give you a significant boost.

Then buy more hard drives. I have one system HD with the main wow instance, then a secondary HD with two other wow instances and then a raid 5 array with other two wow instances. This will not speed your game much, but will reduce the load time when you hearth to dalaran or zone/instance loads.

The only upgrade you need is to buy more hard disks (one more will do the work, but two more will give you similar performance that playing a single toon (no multiboxing) on this same machine you have.
The CPU affinity will fix the frame rates completely.

I have the cpu affinity setup in keycone for each character. Right now I am running everything from one wow directory off one drive. That may be my problem. I am thinking of 2 boxing and creating a media center with all my dvds on the hard drives. My playstation 3 can find the media center on the network. I still have more reading to do on the subject. Before I upgraded to vista I had xp media center to access my mp3's from my home theater system via the playstation. I should be able to put all my movies and mp3s on 1t drives and access it through my playstation. That would be a good reason to gut my amd 3500 and build a nice system for 2 pc 5boxing + dvd/mp3 media center.

[mikekim]

have you tried SET processAffinityMask "15" in each of your config.wtf files in the WTF folder (change the setting from "3" to enable quad core rather than dual core mode)

[pinotnoir]

have you tried SET processAffinityMask "15" in each of your config.wtf files in the WTF folder (change the setting from "3" to enable quad core rather than dual core mode)

I will check this when I get home. Changing it to 15 instead of 3. I dont know what its set to right now but I will give it a shot. Thanks

[Gares]

have you tried SET processAffinityMask "15" in each of your config.wtf files in the WTF folder (change the setting from "3" to enable quad core rather than dual core mode)

I have changed this too in mine as it was set to 3 so I changed mine to 15 as well to see if I get an improvement.

Will advise.

[pinotnoir]

Mine were set to 3 and I changed it to 15. I have since installed 5 wow folders symlinking them all. It seems to help alittle however the two accounts that are on the same core affinity get bad fps. My accounts on their own core affinity get from 10-15fps in dalaran. The 2 that are on the same core get 3-5fps.

I am specing a new system and plan to raid 0 2 of these http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136319

I will then use one of these as my storage/backup drive. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148337