5x WoW and Vista 64

[John110]

At the moment iam using XP Prof ( 32 Bit ), 4 gig ram and 5 accs.

Will be there a performance boost if i go with a 64 bit OS?

Cant really say it lags while i run 5 accs ( 1 PC ) but sometimes i have "keysend" lag so only 2 out of 4 slaves do the action i was sending from main acc. Iam using keyclone.

Or do i get a better performance boost if i buy a quadcore?

[keyclone]

if you go to vista64, you'll be able to put more memory on your box. i've got 8gb on my vista64 quad core box... and loving it.

btw, i was talking with someone today that was tired of 'playing games' with performance issues and took advice i gave him about 2 months ago. he upgraded to the i7 and got 12g of memory (i didn't suggest that much, but it wasn't much more so he went for it). he called today to tell me how thrilled he has been with his new machine. he's got it running 4 screens (2x 22" portrait mode, 1x 30" and 1x 36") and 5-boxing on it, no problem. he says all the screen are extremely smooth (i'm not sure of the video card... it has 4 dvi outputs, 2g of memory and i believe its an nvidia board)

btw, if you do get the quad or i7 chip, make sure to set your cpu affinity correctly and set the maxfpsbk and maxfps fields for each command

[John110]

Sounds good. Thought about a quadcore too.

Whats the difference between quadcore and i7? Iam out of pc buissness for 2 years now, didnt read anything new.

Oh and i have 2 more questions.

1. May i run XP32 prof and vista 64 on 1 PC? ( 2 partitions )

2. Why does keyclone stop sending keystrokes when i open up my task manager? ( XP prof SP3 )

[Enndo]

The i7 has 4 physical cores like a standard quad core, But.. it also has an additional 4 virtual cores! So 8 cores!!

[Contagion]

You can use the PAE switch to get Vista 32 to address more than 4GB of memory.

The question is if the WoW code supports PAE mode.

Microsoft supports Physical Address Extension (PAE) memory in Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 products:

Windows XP (all versions) 4 GB of physical RAM* (*Total physical address space is limited to 4 GB on these versions of Windows.)



Vista doesn't support PAE because it already has a 64bit mode. XP doesn't support > 4 GB even with PAE mode. Not sure what the point is then unless it helps overcome the 1G of RAM lost due to be being allocated for video devices.



All that said, the best option? Download the X64 Win7 RC and get 8G of RAM (or more if your motherboard and wallet support it). You'll have to upgrade to the real Win7 release when it comes out, but it's better than switching to Vista at this point.

[Momo]

Windows 7 will be on the market by August/September. Full release.

Personally, I have been running Vista Ultimate 64 for a couple of years and have found it to be a very good OS.

Windows 7 absolutely wipes the floor with it.

JUst too many more options with 64 bit .

With memory being so cheap at the moment I really cannot see the point of limiting yourself with the OS.

[keyclone]

i haven't bumped to windows 7 yet, but all accounts of its performance are very encouraging.

what i have heard is something about the UI being more like a mac. that is not an improvement in my book (i hate that moving bar at the bottom of mac screens, can it be disabled? can we install our own window manager?).

@John110
1. May i run XP32 prof and vista 64 on 1 PC? ( 2 partitions )

afaik

2. Why does keyclone stop sending keystrokes when i open up my task manager? ( XP prof SP3 )

it should function normally. if you open keyclone's setup, that would be the same as hitting override.

[Tonuss]

At the moment iam using XP Prof ( 32 Bit ), 4 gig ram and 5 accs.

Will be there a performance boost if i go with a 64 bit OS?

Cant really say it lags while i run 5 accs ( 1 PC ) but sometimes i have "keysend" lag so only 2 out of 4 slaves do the action i was sending from main acc. Iam using keyclone.

Or do i get a better performance boost if i buy a quadcore?

Will you get better performance from more than 4GB RAM? Yes.

Will you get better performance from a quad core? Yes.

I 5-boxed on a single machine this past week for the first time. In the past I would run my main on one computer and my alts on a second system. I'm running a Core i7-920 (stock speeds, it hits 3.6GHz easily with the stock HSF, going to replace that next month) with Vista64 and 12GB of memory. I also have three RAID 0 arrays (and the WoW folders spread among them) and two Radeon 4870 (512MB). I connect those to two big LCDs (1920x1200). One LCD has the main character at full 1920x1200, the other has the alts in 800x600 windows (I use keyclone's maximizer for those, to tile them and remove the borders).

Performance overall is good, but the main window tends to have some jitter, and is usually running in the 15-30 FPS range, even with all settings at low. No idea why, but it could have to do with my keyclone settings, as I used the CPU affinity to tie four of the WoWs to a specific core, while leaving the fifth one "unaffiliated." However, it's playable, and one thing that has improved greatly from my old setup is that there is almost never any lag between the windows. In my old setup I would constantly have to tap my assist key twice in order to get all of the alts to target a mob. It doesn't happen now. I can hit my assist key and then my attack key almost immediately and the alts won't "skip" a keypress. I'm going to look into ways to improve performance on the main window, but for now I'm very happy with it.

One thing I know for sure, from watching a system meter I have loaded in the Windows Sidebar, is that the extra RAM is a huge help-- my system load goes to 4900MB shortly after loading all of the WoW windows, and during an average play session it hovers in the 5200-5400MB range. I've seen RAM usage go as high as 7200MB. On a system with 4GB that would've brought things to a halt.

[Korruptor]

[quote='Fursphere',index.php?page=Thread&postID=206 557#post206557]You can use the PAE switch to get Vista 32 to address more than 4GB of memory.

The question is if the WoW code supports PAE mode.[/quote]See [url='http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778.aspx']here[/url] under "Physical Memory Limits: Windows Vista"
"The following table specifies the limits on physical memory for Windows Vista."
Under all versions of 32bit Vista it says 4GB (minus "starter").

PAE or no PAE, it's a lock put in by MS. Even their 32bit "Windows 2003 Server Standard Edition" can't use more the 4GB even with the /PAE switch. Only 32bit Enterprise and above can when enabled with the /PAE switch.

See the bottom of this link .
"Windows XP SP2 and later | AWE API and 4 GB of physical address space"

Also this link :

"Windows XP Professional and Windows Server 2003 Memory Support. The maximum amount of memory that can be supported on Windows XP Professional and Windows Server 2003 is also 4 GB. However, Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition supports 32 GB of physical RAM and Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition supports 64 GB of physical RAM using the PAE feature."

[Catamer]

the boost of speed you get between x32 and x64 is more memory ( or at least the biggest boost )
if you have 3G of ram you probably won't notice that much difference between x32 and x64 flavors.
my presonal experience is x64 works great.

you can run the i7 as either 4 cores at 2.6ghz or 8 cores at 1.3ghz. ( change 2.6ghz to the speed of the cpu you purchase and half it if you run it with 8 cores )
the i7 has a completely overhauled memory manager so the largest boost you get there is that data from memory is getting to the CPU faster than before. I would suggest filling out all of the memory slots.
so an i7 set for 4 cores runs faster than a quad core because if the better memory access.

it all depends on the programs you are running as to whether or not having 4 fast cores or 8 slower cores is better for you. I believe most people are going with the 8.