Computer Performance Advice

[wowphreak]

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/library/bb613473(VS.85).aspx

Xp will use all 4 gigs of memory unfortuanetly the way windows reports its goofy some of the memory get used for the hardware Xp requires some memory...

The /3GB is specifically used for if a single application requires more then 2 gigs of memory when you 5 box your useing 5 applications, not one, the /3gb switch aint gonna help in this case.


Perrigrin: check the motherboard manufacturers website they may have a bios upgrade yeh might be able to stick more memory in there.

[Perrigrin]

Just a short update:

- added a Intel 80GB SSD
- upgraded to 8 GB
- installed Windows 7

= Massive upgrade, can now reliably run massive pvp battles and dalaran as well as new tournament area - It's not perfect, but for the age and spec of the machine it runs amazing

some side notes :

- The display driver for Win7 for my old card crashes now and then, causing me to have to restart wow if it happens (about once every 3-5 hours play, so not bad).
- The power save on the disc needs to be turned off, or it causes a complete system lockup, not what is causing it, but turning power save on the SSD disc off fixed it (setting in Windows power management)
- Sound drivers seem to suck for me in Win7, all kinds of problems with Vent, but fixable

All in all, SSD+8 GB = an amazing bang for the buck!

Thanks for the advice all.

[outdrsyguy1]

Just a short update:

- added a Intel 80GB SSD
- upgraded to 8 GB
- installed Windows 7

= Massive upgrade, can now reliably run massive pvp battles and dalaran as well as new tournament area - It's not perfect, but for the age and spec of the machine it runs amazing

some side notes :

- The display driver for Win7 for my old card crashes now and then, causing me to have to restart wow if it happens (about once every 3-5 hours play, so not bad).
- The power save on the disc needs to be turned off, or it causes a complete system lockup, not what is causing it, but turning power save on the SSD disc off fixed it (setting in Windows power management)
- Sound drivers seem to suck for me in Win7, all kinds of problems with Vent, but fixable

All in all, SSD+8 GB = an amazing bang for the buck!

Thanks for the advice all.

where did you pick up Win7? I've been trying to get the RC from the windows site for a couple days and it just gives me an error when i try to download it.

thx

[Perrigrin]

I have a MSDN subscription volume license, all versions of Win 7 is available there.

[outdrsyguy1]

Okay, so I went from 32 bit xp w/ 4 gig installed ram to 64 bit Vista with 8 gig installed ram. No SSD yet but the results were amazing. I had a blast in Wintergrasp and also got to cruise around Dal for the first time with all 5 accounts and didn't freeze or really stutter at all. My keyclone also works better as keystrokes don't seem to cause undue lagging when i hold down movement keys. (before, if i held forward, all toons would get stuck running forward for an extra few seconds and other key inputs wouldn't really be recognized). In case you didn't see above, i have a geforce 280, Q9550 (2.8ghz quad core)cpu, and regular disk hard drive.

Here's the stats.
Old specs with 4 gig installed ram
Normal Xp 32 idle: ~450 meg RAM usage
5 boxing xp ~2 meg RAM usage (caps at 2.2 usage in DAL, tournament, and WG, and also freezes up a lot there)
CPU usage~ 30% on all 4 cores (i think i was bottlenecked by ram and cpu wasn't having to work hard)

New specs with 8gig installed ram and Vista 64
Vista 64 idle ~1.4 gig RAM usage
5 boxing ~5.7 gig RAM usage (peaks at about 6.2 gig usage in Dal, wg, tournament)
CPU usage ~50% most places, 90-95% on all 4 cores idle in DAL

lesson learned: get 64 bit windows and minimum 8 gigs ram.

I'd love to see it on highspeed 12 gigs ram, but it was too much money to buy the extra 2 4 gig sticks.

[jak3676]

I think some of your problem in 32-bit was your video card. Remember that XP-32 bit can only address a total of 4GB of memory. With 1GB on your video card, that only left 3GB for everything else. So it's not just that you went from 4GB to 8GB, but more like 3GB to 8GB. Even just the upgrade to 64-bit would have bumped you up a GB.

This is just something to keep in mind when you're trying to figure out where your system bottleneck is. If someone were just looking at your old spec's they may have assumed that you were not bottlenecked. It looked like you had plenty of RAM to spare (athough you didn't), and your CPU usage was pretty low too. But in truth you were actually bottlenecked by your OS.

As a side note - if you have a 9550, I don't think you can hold 12GB of RAM. All the 775 motherboards I've seen, cap out at 8GB - 4x 2GB.

[outdrsyguy1]

wow, i never realized that the 4g included the video card, that's good to know.

oh, and my asus p5q motherboard userguide says it will take up to 16 gig (4X4gig sticks/slots). Course that 4 gig stuff's expensive. I think next biggest bang for my buck would be SSD before I move to 12 or 16 gig. I'm definitely loving the new settings though.

Although, sometthing weird is going on with wow. I can't get it to remember my video settings when i login. They seem to reset everytime to the old settings and I think it has something to do with the fact i'm still running the same wow from winxp (vista didn't erase my files at all so i acutally just clicked on keyclone and everything worked great still).