Added a second monitor, huge drop in FPS

[Ryan]

My current specs are Windows XP running on Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600, GeForce 8800 GT, and 4gb of RAM.
For the longest time I've been running three clients on just one monitor. But since Wrath came out and I got flying mounts, and with the phasing, I've had some trouble where it would be nice to be able to see my secondaries and see if they actually broke /follow or if they were just going to warp over to me shortly, like they often do. So I hook up the second monitor, keep One on the main monitor and drag the other two over to the secondary monitor. My FPS went from sitting right up at 60 to down to around 10 or less. I expected a bit of a drop with having it display a second monitor and making all the windows visible, but this seems a bit much to me.
Is there anything I could do to try and improve it? Or what on my system would be the limiting factor that I could upgrade?

[GizmoxLoW]

In your video settings you have to set it on widespan where it takes both monitors and combines them to make one huge screen. when you have them configured by themselves it hurts your fps dramitically

[-silencer-]

Change your display settings for multiple monitors from dual-view to horizontal span. Also keep in mind that you're trying to render twice as much data as before, so naturally it'll be much slower, especially on your videocard..

[Ryan]

Thanks for your help, I tried setting it up as Horizontal Span, and that did fix the FPS problem, but it made everything look horrible. There was significant stretching and distortion. And doing anything non-wow related (like using my web browser or trying to watch a movie) was even worse. This may or may not be because my two monitors are ever so slightly off. Both 24 inch, ones is 1920x1200 and the other 1920x1080. From what I can find in searching the forum for Horizontal Span or Dual View or Dual Monitor or whatever else Icould think of it looks like I need to upgrade to Vista to get it to look like what I want. Which is not really the answer I was hoping for. Well, I'll keep searching now that I know what to search for. If there's anything I missed that you think I should look at or try let me know. Thanks.

[Hiarcs]

You should upgrade to vista anyways.. You will find boxing alot smoother with vista not to mention you will be able to utilize your full 4G of ram. Also dont' forget to set your cpu affinities. As for drivers i know the 8800 series have issues with drivers so if at all possible move up to the 280GTX.. you will see day/night difference.

[Mercurio]

Or even a 260GTX - much less expensive than a 280GTX and still a very solid card if you are strapped for cash.

[algol]

not to mention you will be able to utilize your full 4G of ram.

Yes, let's not mention that - seeing as it's wrong.

The memory limit thing is 32-bit vs. 64-bit, not XP vs. Vista.

[Nisch]

You should upgrade to vista anyways.. You will find boxing alot smoother with vista not to mention you will be able to utilize your full 4G of ram. Also dont' forget to set your cpu affinities. As for drivers i know the 8800 series have issues with drivers so if at all possible move up to the 280GTX.. you will see day/night difference.

I have a dual boot 64-bit XP and Vista system. XP still takes the cake compared to Vista, all things being equal.

[zanthor]

not to mention you will be able to utilize your full 4G of ram.

Yes, let's not mention that - seeing as it's wrong.

The memory limit thing is 32-bit vs. 64-bit, not XP vs. Vista.

Yep, 32 bit can access 4GB however some of that address space is reserved for hardware.

So if he's replacing his OS it makes sense to go to a 64 bit vista, opening up the top 1GB of ram to actually be used, and fixing the dual view issue.

The issue with your dual view is indeed the unmatched resolutions. The solution is to get matching monitors and keep XP or upgrade to Vista 64.