Creating a benchmark for Multiboxing Systems.

[Sina]

A little introduction : I work for a company called Doghousesystems.com and i have had a few customers who want a "cream of the crop" multiboxing system. As usual we started doing some testing with regards to what hardware do we need to setup a performance curve in relation to multiboxing customers.

Here is what i have come up with thus far:
For all practical reasons i am guessing that most multiboxers run on 2 monitors
Monitor 1 : is on 1280x1024 with all settings on "high" and is only running your main account
Monitor 2 : is running 4 clients of 800x600 with all settings on "low"

Edit: All clones are set to max fps 15 and the main account is set to uncapped. So our numbers should turn out like this:
GTX295 on i7 965 : 80/15/15/15/15
GTX 280 on i7 965: 75/15/15/15/15
ect...

Affinity is set to default ( for stability and there are so many different methods i figure to keep the playing field simple and untainted id leave it alone. )

I took all 5 accounts to nexus ( farthest western flight point ) and flew all 5 accounts ( using /timetest ) to howling fjor ( farthest flight point to the east of northrend )
"why northrend?" Because it seems to be the most taxing zones on your system.

the /timetest removes all variables and keeps your camera angle still so that you can get a repeatable framerate for the sake of benchmarking.

I have done this test now with multiple builds including all varations of:
i7 920 940 965
gtx 260
gtx 280
gtx 295
gtx 285 ( pre production)

ati radeon 4850
ati radeon 4870
ati radeon 4870x2 ( no, there were no changes thus i stuck with single card configs )


I am still in the middle of testing all this but this is only phase 1. Phase 2 will be adding different variations of hard drives including:
INTEL 32G SSD
OCZ SSD
WD Raptor
WD Vraptor
WD 7200 RPM drive ( black series )

ect.

along with the different storage settings i will try to change some display settings to see how we can optimize each frame and push out as much as we can out of our systems. Or future systems for that matter. I also plan on creating a solution for those multiboxers who are looking at purchasing a system in the future that want to multibox on a single PC. Yes i did this in the past but this will be far superior as i now have acess to far more resources.

My main reason for this post was to get your input on my "multiboxing benchmark", are you satisfied with my method? What are your suggestions?

Thanks gents/ladies ! Happy Boxing.

Preliminary scores:

[Freddie]

I think this is a great idea, and your results will be helpful to lots of people.

I'd like to suggest one change in your methods. I think you should set affinity to all cores, in other words, every instance of WoW should be able to run on cores 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.

Here's why. Most programs don't set their own affinities. In other words, they leave the operating system free to assign their theads to any and all cores, which gives the operating system maximum ability to optimize performance. This is the "real" default affinity, and it's the same as what I just said you should set deliberately.

But WoW isn't like those normal programs. For some reason, Wow takes deliberate action to set its own affinity to only cores 0 and 1. That means no matter how many instances of WoW you're running, it's restricted on a quad core to using (at most) half the CPU. It's the same two cores for every WoW no matter how many you run.

Nobody with a quad core should multibox that way. Obviously everyone wants their WoWs to make use of the whole CPU. But you're testing that way with just two virtual cores.

So I suggest using the "real" default -- the natural operating system setting -- for test purposes, with all threads free to run on all cores.

[Sina]

I'd say use the wiki...... but nobody appears to use it anyway.

Please point me to where the wiki shows up to date benchmarks with relation to 5 boxing on 1 pc... Also where in the wiki does it show the optimisation of different harddrives and varaiations of current SSD's . I do use the wiki but i can't seem to find these features. Hence the post.

[Sina]

I think this is a great idea, and your results will be helpful to lots of people.

I'd like to suggest one change in your methods. I think you should set affinity to all cores, in other words, every instance of WoW should be able to run on cores 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.

Here's why. Most programs don't set their own affinities. In other words, they leave the operating system free to assign their theads to any and all cores, which gives the operating system maximum ability to optimize performance. This is the "real" default affinity, and it's the same as what I just said you should set deliberately.

But WoW isn't like those normal programs. For some reason, Wow takes deliberate action to set its own affinity to only cores 0 and 1. That means no matter how many instances of WoW you're running, it's restricted on a quad core to using (at most) half the CPU. It's the same two cores for every WoW no matter how many you run.

Nobody with a quad core should multibox that way. Obviously everyone wants their WoWs to make use of the whole CPU. But you're testing that way with just two virtual cores.

So I suggest using the "real" default -- the natural operating system setting -- for test purposes, with all threads free to run on all cores.

Noted, i will add this to the benchmark.

[weeep]

Why 1280x1024 for main? I don't think that somebody willing to buy a computer capable of 5boxing, cant afford a better monitor. Try AT LEAST 1920x1200, or even better 2560x1600. Video performance and lack of video memory while 5boxing is really hurting fps on real systems.

[Yo-Yo Freak]

Why 1280x1024 for main? I don't think that somebody willing to buy a computer capable of 5boxing, cant afford a better monitor. Try AT LEAST 1920x1200, or even better 2560x1600. Video performance and lack of video memory while 5boxing is really hurting fps on real systems.

the average person will only be using a 1280x1024 monitor, MAYBE a 1920x1200 monitor but that is highly unlikely, and a 2560x1600 monitor for your main? please... if you think about it a 24" monitor is already pushing it to be able to view your alts as it is. nobody in there right mind would use a 30" for there main and a second monitor for there alts, they would be so far out of your pereferial vision that you would probably have to swivel in your chair to look at it. just stick with 1280x1024 and maybe 1920x1200, anything bigger than that would be a wast of time on your part IMHO.

other then that i agree with Freddie, wow will default to the first two cores, logical or physical. set the them to default to all cores (0-7 on the i7 CPU), that will help to maximize performance output.

everything else looks great, can't w8 to see your results! keep us updated ^_^.

oh and Doghousesystems has some very nice looking stuff, looks like its very high quality work :thumbsup: .

~YYF

[Shaitan256]

I'd say use the wiki...... but nobody appears to use it anyway.

Seems like that, but I can't understand that, it's such a huge Knowledge Encyclopedia about Multiboxing, I look it up everytime I've got something in mind, that oculd be helpful, if it's already in there I look through it if not I'll waste your time with reading my Posts *muhaha*^^

[Sam DeathWalker]

This is how to maximize your system:

You dont need raid.

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3471&p=9

Get the gigabyte (extreme version) then.

http://cgi.ebay.com/GIGABYTE-GA-EX58...QQcmdZViewItem

Get a Veloraptor (1). Put 24G on the board. 920 should be suffieicent cpu (assuming just for 5 boxing wow if you doing ray tracing or seit or other stuffs then get better).

Get 280 or whatever high end video card you like (1), NOT TWO. If you want to burn money just get a better single card, not two.

SPend yur monies on FIRST QUALITY 24G of ram.

64 bit OS and yur done dont waste on raid, SSD or anything else. Put the whole wow folder (everything) in ram before you start (make yur ram a ram drive for like 10G of it, after to shut down you have to read the whole ram drive back to the raptor so that if any writes were made they will stay). Wham you will get the best frame rates possible, and not waste monies where not needed.

You will get unreal framerates cause of the 28GB/s that the i7 can move data at. TWENTY EIGHT GIG A SECOND thats how fast you will be moveing data from your ram to your cpu. I mean lol ... you will never access the hard drive during play, because the entire wow folder is in your ram drive.

SSD drive is 3G/S IF THAT AT BEST, raptor is slower.

Your Ram 28G/S

This tells it all:

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/824/4/

My best system is 11G/sec. My others are like 8G/sec and there is a big difference between the systems (my 11G/sec system closes out 5 wows FASTER then a quadcore 4G/sec closes out ONE wow). I can't imigane have a 28G/sec is going to be. You can hit exit and hit the desktop almost instantly I bet.

You win.

Read thread: Nvidia GTX 295 - good gawd!

the 285 would be my choice but high end ati is good also. Silencer comments in the thread are my belief also.

Also you cannot use FPS that is more then your monitor refreash rate. If you have a FPS of 100, and your monitor is 75HZ then your video card just throw away the 25 extra frames it had to calculate that second. Get a 120HZ monitor if you have money to burn, THEN set your max FPS at 120 and you will see full effect of your video card. 120 FPS on a 60HZ monitor is you video card doing 2X more work then is sent to your eyes ....


The I7 and having the whole wow folder in ram is what is going to make yur fps go way up.

I have 1600X1200 on main and 1280X960 on the 5 other computers (Im the 26 boxer guy), my monitor can do the 1920 X 1200 but I need 4:3 so I can copy UI's to all.

I guess a flight is as good as anything else.

You won't see much difference between the high end video cards. The Memory bandwidth is what makes or breaks you.

Ya Im 60fps on main and limit of 30inforground 5back on the other 5. I run all in fullsceen and no tiles.

[Clanked]

The benchmark I really want to read about, is the amount of ram.
6GB vs 12GB in dalaran. Is 6 really enough?

Also tri display setups.
Can a secondary 4870 card support two 1680x1050 monitors running 2 clients each with the primary card running the main client only?

[Sina]

i will do a few 12g v 6g ddr3 tests. I can also do corsair vs kingston ect.

added some pictures of whats going on. will have a full whitepaper soon.