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

[vchi]

10. Storage System Bound:
Hard drives are setup as follows:
150GB raptor contains OS and one main WoW folder with four WoW symbolically linked to the main WoW folder (the symbolically linked folder each has there own WTF configure file).
74GB raptor contains 24GB page file.


Note 1: There's been a lot of talk about using a Solid State Device (SSD) for certain performance improvement. Now, I will agree that SSD offer load times improvement. However, I will not go out of my way to by the best or even a mediocre and cheap SSD. Here's why:
Reasoning(s):
1. Hierarchical caching system. A computer is by design multiple levels of abstraction and hierarchy. Each level is designed to hide the complexities in the lower levels. Case in point, the CPU core is at the highest point on this hierarchy. Every time it puts a request for data, it does not care where the data comes from and only that it gets it data. Keeping in this mind, a multi-tier caching system is design to hide the complexity of where the data is coming from and how difficult it is to retrieve such data. You hope that the data is found in the space closest to the CPU (and in most cases, this is true due to locality). You also hope that the data that is not found in the space closest to the CPU (and in most case, you minimizing this with locality and caching algorithms.), will be found in the next space closest to the CPU.
Also keep in mind the issue of performance vs cost and they are a one-to-one correlation. The more performance you need, the more you need to pay up for it. However, like all WoW tanking stats are subjected to diminishing returns (DR) so is maximum performance.
Example:
The above example may be a little extreme but does make a point that as you get further and further away from the CPU, your relative performance increase subjected to diminishing returns. In addition increasing the each space size and retrieval rate does offer some performance improvement and additional cost, but depending on the code, it will reach a point where there is no performance improvement. But by using a multi-tier caching system, you have the best compromise in performance and cost.
2. Vista or any modern system that puts a strong emphasis on maximizing caching of available system memory.
Getting back to the issue of whether or not an individual should buy a SSD for performance improvements should reconsider for other reasons:
Other reasoning(s):
1. Limited acoustic noise.
2. Limited thermal dissipation.
3. Compactness.
4. Limited memory for caching purposes (this is a stretch) whether it be due to hardware limitation (i.e. Pentium III), software limitation (32-bit operating system), or budgetary reasons.
5. Load times (This is also a stretch too. WoW does not spend most of it's time loading data. Performance improvement would be dependent on how often you load data that is needed and not available in cache. Look at other reasoning 4.).

Observation 1:
Based on long-term observations, the only time the hard drive accessed anything was during boot up, shut down, loading WoW, quiting WoW, loading new area/zone and loading dungeon instance. Other than that, there was little or no hard drive access.

11. NPU Bound:
Note 1: There's some talk about and some review related to the KillerNIC. Whether or not it would improve your network connection depends on the following:
Condition(s):
1. Are you running another network dependent application in the background with your WoW instances?
2. How much of a network load are the other applications putting on your Network Interface Card (NIC)?
3. Are the other applications TCP or UDP packet dependent?


Condition(s) beyond your control:
1. Internet traffic worldwide.
2. Is there a virus outbreak, DoS, DDOS or etc going on the Internet?
3. How packets are prioritized and routed across the Internet.
4. How packets are prioritized and routed once it reaches Blizzard.
5. How many individuals are currently logged into WoW.
6. If you are using a wireless connection, electromagnetic (EM) interference and other devices on your LAN.
Observation 1:
For a while I was playing five instances of WoW on Time Warner Cable Road Runner Turbo (Up: 3.0Mbits / Down: 22.0Mbits) then I lowered it down to Road Runner lite (Up: 384Kbps / Down: 768Kbps). There was no noticeable lost in performance or increase in network latency. However, there was a drop in reliability of the Internet connection, but this was mainly due to the issue of insufficient upload bandwidth for running 5 instances of WoW. During this time, one of the WoW instances would occasionally lose a connection to the server.

12. OS Bound:
Observation 1:
For a while I ran my gaming rig with default settings in Vista. Then I tried to shutdown unnecessary services in Vista, but there was no noticeable improvement between the two settings. The only thing different was Vista memory usage and boot up time was slightly lower but none of this affected WoW.

Observation 2:
From a careful observational point of view, while running 5 instances of WoW, there is a slight pause every so often and it occurs with the mouse response being sluggish or non-responsive. It occurs at random, but mainly in the Zul'drak zone. I'm not sure if occurs when I enter other zones, but it may be a thread scheduler issue. The reason why is every time I observe the resource monitor and task manager for clues as to what may be causing the issue, I can not find it. The only guess I can make is it has something to do with the Vista's thread scheduler and NUMA Most common desktop applications are designed to run on any core, however with the trend towards NUMA, the issue then becomes would you want to have your application run on any core at random. Getting back to the CPU affinity and NUMA issue, if an application can bounce back and forth across processor nodes, how would that affect application performance. In this case, with the mouse and keyboard software set by default to run any core, I tried to limit them to processor node 0 (cores 0-3). Unfortunately, that did not resolve the issue.

13. Driver Bound:
Update in next revision.

14. App Bound:
Update in next revision.

15. MMI Bound:
Update in next revision.