Multiboxing Wiki - Multicpu, Multigpu, Multiharddrive, Multimonitor, etc and Bounded Issues. Revision 3. Work in Progress.

[vchi]

4. System Memory Bound:
Observation 1:
All WoW instances are compared between the two following settings:
Setting 1:
Video Settings -> Resolution Tab:
Resolution:1920x1200 (Wide)
Multisampling:24-bit color 24-bit depth 8x multisample
Refresh:60Hz
Vertical Sync:Unchecked
Hardware Cursor:Checked
Reduce Input Lag:Unchecked
Windowed Mode:Checked
Maximized:Unchecked
Video Settings -> Effects Tab:
Video Quality:Custom (Everything high minus the Shadow Quality: Low)

Setting 2:
WoW2-WoW5 instances are set as follows:
Video Settings -> Resolution Tab:
Resolution:1920x1200 (Wide)
Multisampling:24-bit color 24-bit depth 1x multisample
Refresh:60Hz
Vertical Sync:Unchecked
Hardware Cursor:Checked
Reduce Input Lag:Unchecked
Windowed Mode:Checked
Maximized:Unchecked
Video Settings -> Effects Tab:
Video Quality:Custom
View Distance:High
Terrain Detail:Low
Spell Detail:High
Environmental Detail:Low
Ground Clutter Detail:Low
Ground Clutter Radius:Low
Shadow Quality:Low
Texture Resolution:Low
Texture Filtering:Low
Weather Filtering:Low
Video Settings -> Effects Tab -> Shaders:
Specular Lighting:Unchecked
Full-screen Glow Effect:Unchecked
Death Effect:Unchecked

Note 1: The overriding factor in determining how much memory is needed is based off of the graphic settings for each of the WoW instances.
For the highest setting, my ram usage was above and stayed above 1GB for each instance of WoW. For the lowest setting, my ram usage bounced between 700MB to 1GB for each WoW instance.

The only danger here is when the following happens:

(WoW video setting * number of WoW instances) memory usage >= available memory per processor node.

Like I stated earlier, performance is affected when memory request starts crossing over the HT to the other processor node. To minimize this effect, I recommended to keep memory usage below the memory available per processor node. Another thing to keep in mind is that processor affinity instructs the operating system to keep certain programs on certain processor node. By doing this ensures that your program will not cross another processor node unless all programs with processor affinity set to the specified node has memory requirements exceeding available memory on the node.


Observation 2:
Loading my system 8 core system with 24GB of system memory resulted in no speed improvement given that I met most of the recommended requirements for each WoW instance. On the other hand with each WoW instance memory usage hovering between 1 GB and 1.5 GB and having 10 GB+ of system memory available for caching resulted in minimal load times when traveling and zoning. Long term observation showed little or no hard disk activity. However, once entering into Dalaran my memory usage was at it's highest, about 1.25 GB for each WoW instance. There was no lag or lack of system response. However, there was a drop in frame rate and it is due to a heavy load on the CPU with the new city design, proximity of different zones and number of characters located in a confined area.

Observation 3:
Going off observation 2, taking the 8 core system's ram and dropping the 400MHz ram for the 800MHz ram resulted in no noticeable performance improvement.

5. System I/O Bound
Update in next revision.