Upgrades to Run 5x Accounts on one machine.

[Slats]

Hi guys,

I posted a similar thread to this a number of months ago but I've lost it and the advice people gave might be out of date. Anyway sorry for the sort-of double post.

CPU: Q9550
RAM: 4GB DDR2 @ 1150 Mhz
Video: Nvidia GTX280 1GB
Motherboard: Asus P5Q
Hard Drive: 320GB WD

I run two monitors both at 1920 x 1200. I want to have my 'main' display on one and my clones split in 4 on the other. I'm essentially not ready to buy an i7 machine for another year or so (maybe the next WoW xpac) so I'd like to upgrade this one so I dont lag in Dalaran/Raids/WG.
My motherboard only has 4 RAM slots so I was going to go with 8GB of RAM which will have to be DDR2.

And I was going to add a 2nd Hard Drive and was looking at SSD's for my 4 wow folder(s).

First of, is 8GB going to be enough, and what are my other options? 4GB sticks seem crazy expensive and very slow. And how much better is having the SSD vs just adding another 7200RPM WD hard drive?

Also I plan to use Vista 64 till I can get my hands on Windows 7.

Is my video card going to cut it? CPU?

Thanks for any advice.

-Slats

[Powerwar]

I have similar gear and I can play 5 wows no problem:

CPU = Q9650
Mobo = Asus Striker Extreme
Ram = 8 GB Kingston @ 800 Mhz
Video = Nvidia EN8800 GTS (strangerly performs much better than the 9600)
HD = Main system HD + one extra HD + 5 other HDs in RAID 5. All are Seagate 500 GB HDs. I use the main systen HD for the main wow and the 4 slaves are on the extra hd that is not raided. The data folder is symlinked on the slaves HD.
OS = Vista ultimate 64 bits
Sound = SB X-Fi. I don't use the sound card that comes with the mobo because it draws some performance and the drivers that come with it suck big time. Also the sound queality it delivered was pure crap. It was called HD audio or something like.

The case I use is a datacenter designed one with lots of ventilation and airflow. As long as the machine runs cool the performance is good.

Make sure you use the correct dirvers and don't use the ones that come with the mobo CDs. Go directly to Nvidia and download the needed drivers from there. Install only the drivers you need and not the stupid asus republic of gamers drivers, these seem to cause strange behavior when running in crowded areas.

A big performance boost for me was adding more ram and separating the main wow from the slaves on a different HD. It takes a bit longer (about 2 seconds) to load dalaran, but during lag spikes the main performs ok and the slaves seem to fire stuff reagrdless they are lagging on fps or not.

You can handle 5 clients with 4 GB of ram, but you will be unable to approach cities nor raid. Basically until northrend you will see not problems. Once you reach wolk content you will need to add more ram because the zones are too big and require more memory to load properly.

Perhaps you will need to add another video card for the second monitor. I run mines on a single big monitor... moostly because I have already other two 24" monitors on my desk and addig a fourth one would be not that cool and would need to get my head spinning like the girl in the exorcist movie.

I have all my slaves forced to 15 fps when inactive and 30 fps when active and the main completely unrestricted. My main rarely drops under 30 fps. The only time I have seen my main under 30 fps is when dalaran is very crowded during peak hours and in wintergrasp zerg when there are lots of people (two raids on each side).

[Slats]

Thanks for the excellent reply.

I will order 4GB more RAM or possible just buy a fresh lot of 8GB where everything matches.

Can anyone give me any advice on SSD vs a normal SATAII hard drive? I want a second disk where i symlink (that powershell script someone linked was fantastic for making clone folders). Essentially I would have two copies of wow one for my 'main' one for 'clone1' and symlink the other 3 folders of clone1 so that my mods can be different.

I know benchmark wise yes there is probably an advantage to SSD but in practice and espeically with mboxing is there any noticable difference?

[Dzonatan]

Thanks for the excellent reply.

I will order 4GB more RAM or possible just buy a fresh lot of 8GB where everything matches.

Can anyone give me any advice on SSD vs a normal SATAII hard drive? I want a second disk where i symlink (that powershell script someone linked was fantastic for making clone folders). Essentially I would have two copies of wow one for my 'main' one for 'clone1' and symlink the other 3 folders of clone1 so that my mods can be different.

I know benchmark wise yes there is probably an advantage to SSD but in practice and espeically with mboxing is there any noticable difference?

It would be much wiser to have seperate WoW folders for each WoW instance. Because if even one error will come up in the WoW thats linked with other 3 through that one folder all 4 will go down.

[Fef]

Thanks for the excellent reply.

I will order 4GB more RAM or possible just buy a fresh lot of 8GB where everything matches.

Can anyone give me any advice on SSD vs a normal SATAII hard drive? I want a second disk where i symlink (that powershell script someone linked was fantastic for making clone folders). Essentially I would have two copies of wow one for my 'main' one for 'clone1' and symlink the other 3 folders of clone1 so that my mods can be different.

I know benchmark wise yes there is probably an advantage to SSD but in practice and espeically with mboxing is there any noticable difference?

Yes, order more memory. And definately go for the SSD. We're not talking about a "noticable difference", it's simply day and night. Make sure to go with a good SSD, though (i.e. an Intel or an OCZ Vertex).

I bought a 60GB OCZ Vertex, and it's the best investment I have made in my multiboxing experience. Dalaran doesn't lag even when porting there with 5 characters at once !

[Slats]

OK I've ordered:

8GB of OCZ Reaper 8500 DDR2 (2GB x 4)

and a

OCZ Summit 60GB SSD 128MB Cache - this seemed to be much better speed than the normal Vertex Disks that came in 30GB and 60GB updwards but not quite as good as the Vertex Turbo.

Hopefully this should give me a very noticable performance increase over 4GB and 1 drive.

[Slats]

OK so I have decided to grab another SSD for my OS and just use the 320GB for movies/big files.

So I've got a 60GB drive and a 120GB drive. The 120GB drive has a write speed of 200MB and read of 220MB and the 60GB has a read of 220MB and a Write of 125MB.

I was thinking I should be using the 120GB for my OS and put WoW on the slower writing drive or is a lot of data written to WoW when we play? I guess I'm wondering whats going to give me the best performance.

I've also decided to load Windows 7x64 RC for more performance and to move away from Vista.

Any advice on peoples hard drive/os setups would be appreciated.

[alcattle]

very little is written to WoW but it reads a ton of small files. OS loads once and then writes back and forth. My opinion, Wow on fast drive, even if that is the small drive.

[Slats]

Thanks for the reply - my two drives and RAM arrived today - just burnt Windows 7 RC and got my Key.

Going to back everything up tonight and rebuild my machine - fun fun fun!