Computer Performance Advice

[Perrigrin]

Guys,

I've been 5-boxing for a good while now, and my computer has done ok - But, Dalaran, PVP and even running around the Tournament area slows it to a craw and even causing frequent freezes on one or many wow clients.
The freezes become more frequent until I restart wow or even reboot - Typically, if I visit Dalaran, I benefit from a reboot of at least wow after that.
Most of the freezes are of the kind that I get them entering a new area, then as it has "stabilized" around that it moves better - But areas like running around the tournament in IC or dalaran are always extermely jerky and laggy.

So, I am firstly looking for advice how to invest in the current machine to get a bit more bang for the buck out of it, but I've come to terms that I will need a new one most likely.

So, I'm running:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2,50 GHz
4 GB of Memory (which is max this motherboard can take)
2x 500 GB 7200 RPM discs, both quite full. WoW is ran from one disc, OS from the other (same as swap file), I run 2 folders of wow, one for main, one for the 4 slaves - All but UI and config data is linked.
A 8800GTS 640MB something no name graphics card - powerin 2x 22 inch Samsung monitors at 1680x1050, 32 bit color.

Maximizer in keyclone is set to 1-1 in game resolution,
Main wow is set to maxfpsbk 15 and maxfps 60
Slave wows are set to maxfpsbk 15 and maxfps 20

My main wow is set to the graphics settings I like playing with single boxing - which is fairly high spell effects etc to be able to see stuff on ground in raids etc and a resolution of 1600x900 24 bit color (60hz).
The slaves run the effects slider all the way on minimum, and 720x576, 24 bit color (60hz).

So, any advice that could improve my current setup? Mostly I would like to be able to pass through the IC torunament area without freezing and lagging.

I do realize I will eventually be getting a new box, but I'll start a new thread on advice about that.

Thanks guys!

[Kalros]

Yeah, the RAM is really your Achilles heel. Ideally for Northrend you want 8GB. I couldnt even quest in Howling Fjord until I upgraded to 8GB myself. Would you be able to just get a new motherboard and put all your old parts into it?

[Kalros]

Oh, and since 3.2, even with my 8GB of RAM, I lag like crazy in the Tournament area too.

[Perrigrin]

Oh, and since 3.2, even with my 8GB of RAM, I lag like crazy in the Tournament area too.

That's kinda disheartening, any idea why?

[Owltoid]

For smooth multiboxing many suggest 2 clients per core max, 1GB RAM per client min, and an SSD.

Obviously you can multibox with less than that, but for smooth multiboxing it seems to work. I only ever lag at the end of a WG battle and I feel it's probably due to server lag, not my computer:
i7 920, 12GB RAM, SSD, GTX275 1.8GB VRAM

[Svpernova09]

I just upgraded to a Q8400. So I'm running quad 2.6, 8gigs ram, 1tb 32mb cache SATA drive. and a PCi-E 8400 GT Nvidia card. my ownly downfall atm is my video card, and I lag here and there, but it's usually not bad, and I'm normally 30 FPS on the main, 15 on the slaves.

So RAM is definetely you're point of upgrade here, sucks that you're at max the board can take.

[jeffz0rz]

Operating system makes more of a difference than most people realize, specially with ram. Windows XP 32bit edition, will only make use of 3GB's of ram, and thats only after you change some compicated settings.. I think in the registry.. I don't remember exactly how I did it, I'll find a link and post it. So right there, thats 1gb, maybe even 2gb's of your 4 that aren't even being utilized.

I also don't remember the limits for each version of windows XP and vista..

Maybe someone else can confirm?

Edit, found and copied this from http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...73(VS.85).aspx

4-Gigabyte Tuning

On 32-bit editions of Windows, applications have 4 gigabyte (GB) of virtual address space available. The virtual address space is divided so that 2 GB is available to the application and the other 2 GB is available only to the system.
The 4-gigabyte tuning (4GT) feature, formerly called 4GT RAM Tuning, increases the virtual address space that is available to the application up to 3 GB, and reduces the amount available to the system to between 1 and 2 GB.
For applications that are memory-intensive, such as database management systems (DBMS), the use of a larger virtual address space can provide considerable performance and scalability benefits. However, the file cache, paged pool, and nonpaged pool are smaller, which can adversely affect applications with heavy networking or I/O. Therefore, you might want to test your application under load, and examine the performance counters to determine whether your application benefits from the larger address space.
To enable 4GT, use the BCDEdit /set command to set the increaseuserva boot entry option to a value between 2048 (2 GB) and 3072 (3 GB).

Windows Server 2003 and earlier: To enable 4GT, add the /3GB switch to the Boot.ini file. The /3GB switch is supported on the following systems:

• Windows Server 2003
• Windows XP Professional
• Windows 2000 Datacenter Server
• Windows 2000 Advanced Server

The /3GB switch makes a full 3 GB of virtual address space available to applications and reduces the amount available to the system to 1 GB. On Windows Server 2003, the amount of address space available to applications can be adjusted by setting the /USERVA switch in Boot.ini to a value between 2048 and 3072, which increases the amount of address space available to the system. This can help maintain overall system performance when the application requires more than 2 GB but less than 3 GB of address space.

To enable an application to use the larger address space, set the IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE flag in the image header. The linker included with Microsoft Visual C++ supports the /LARGEADDRESSAWARE switch to set this flag. Setting this flag and then running the application on a system that does not have 4GT support should not affect the application.

[daviddoran]

Guys,

(snip)
2x 500 GB 7200 RPM discs, both quite full. WoW is ran from one disc, OS from the other (same as swap file), I run 2 folders of wow, one for main, one for the 4 slaves - All but UI and config data is linked.
(snip)


So, any advice that could improve my current setup? Mostly I would like to be able to pass through the IC torunament area without freezing and lagging.

I do realize I will eventually be getting a new box, but I'll start a new thread on advice about that.

Thanks guys!

I think the drive space is your problem. Standard hard drives perform much worse when at or near capacity. I have 2 computers and 3 separate wow folders. one copy of wow is on a velociraptor, another (that runs 2 clients) is on an older raptor, and the other is on a regular 7200 RPM drive. I always see the raptor loading faster than the 7200 rpm one, and the velociraptor (that also holds my OS and swap file, etc) is always first to load.

My suggestion: Buy a dedicated SSD for wow, and run all clients from it. Just a 32gb one will be fine for you, and wont run you much more than $150 for a decent one.

[BoxingGeeks]

I have almost the same exact specs as you. Same processor / video card but i have 8GB of ram instead of 4GB. I run vista 64bit and was having the same issues as you. I run 2 monitors a 30inch and a 20 inch for the clones. The weird thing is a reboot or starting all of my wow sessions would bump be back to normal.

Being a computer nerd i started to monitor everything (CPU Usage, Disk usage, bandwitch ect....) all of which seemed to be fine. I then when to my addon's and kicked everything out but Jamba and MikScrolling battletext..... Everything went back to 60FPS on the primary and the clones were smooth.

Only thing i have noticed is if i Cntl+Esc to open another program like IE or Crome.. my FPS starts to suck even after i close them.. Something pisses Wow off and it wont run good FPS until a reboot or completely closing wow's + keyclone.

My resources dont change after i have opened the other apps it just runs poorly afterwards.

Another thing that i noticed it that after the PC falls asleep and comes back out of sleep mode my FPS sucks.

Anyone have good luck on Windows 7??? Now that its released I was thinking of testing it.

PS i run smooth in dalaran and all city's when its working good...

[Perrigrin]

Hmm, well the SSD was going to be my next try - As that is something I can easily move to a new machine.

I'm also curious about the 4GB limit - The original add of the machine: http://www.webhallen.com/prod.php?id=86349 (it's in Swedish, but you can read the specs) says it's 4GB max - But googling the motherboard - I've found hints at it supporting more.

Anyone know anything about the ATX NV C2Q 775 PCIe nVIDIA nForce 650i Ultra mobo used in FS computers?