FPS problems

[vorticone]

Hello everyone,

I recently upgraded my machine to be able to fivebox, but somehow I do get pretty low fps when launching multiple copies of WoW. I already tried tweaking my config files, but so far I see only few results.

First, my machine specs. I am multiboxing using only one computer. I am running a Intel Q9550 2.83GHz Quad Cpu with 8 GB of RAM (DDR2-800MHz). As a graphics card I run a NVIDIA GeForce GTS250 with 512 MB RAM.
I use two monitors, both 22". The primary monitor is connected via DVI and the secondary monitor is connected via VGA as the card does not have 2 DVI connectors. Oh, and I am running Windows 7.

I run five copies of WoW, one with high details on my primary display and the four others on my secondary display. I use Maximizer to arrange the windows, and I use start scripts to use individual Config.wtf files for each WoW instance. The four WoW instances on my secondary monitor all use the same configuration more or less. Sound off, no multisampling, low video options, the usual.
I am not assigning specific cores to each WoW instance, I am just letting them use whichever they prefer. And I am running everything from a single WoW installation on my SATA disk.

Running only my four toons with the minimal config they appear fine. All more or less the 20 FPS I am limiting them to in the Config.wtf. Windows Taskmanager is showing me all cores to run at around 25% and only about 3.5 gigs of ram are used. Very playable.

The problem starts when I launch my main toon. Before even logging in (sitting idle at the account login screen) all cpu cores jump to 100% and stay there. When I exit the main WoW instance they all immediately lower down to where they were before.

Now I tried to use the same Config.wtf on my main as I use on my toons, and that works wonders. All five logged in sit at 40% cpu and about 4 gigs of ram used. Pretty nice, very playable again. But I miss all the eye candy on my main! I tried slowly raising the graphic options up, but so far I could not find that evil performance hog that is causing the big fps loss. If anyone has an idea, I am posting my low graphics and my old main config below.

This is the Config.wtf I use for low graphics with high fps results:

SET gxWindow "1"
SET gxResolution "1680x1050"
SET maxfps "20"
SET maxFPSBk "20"
SET readTOS "1"
SET readEULA "1"
SET readScanning "-1"
SET readContest "-1"
SET hwDetect "0"
SET gxRefresh "60"
SET gxMultisampleQuality "0.000000"
SET farclip "1277"
SET movie "0"
SET realmList "eu.logon.worldofwarcraft.com"
SET realmName "Aegwynn"
SET gxTripleBuffer "1"
SET Gamma "1.200000"
SET weatherDensity "0"
SET locale "enGB"
SET timingTestError "3"
SET showToolsUI "0"
SET mouseSpeed "1"
SET coresDetected "4"
SET readTerminationWithoutNotice "1"
SET Sound_EnableReverb "1"
SET Sound_VoiceChatInputDriverName "Aureon 5.1 Fun Wave"
SET Sound_VoiceChatOutputDriverName "Aureon 5.1 Fun Wave"
SET Sound_OutputDriverName "System Default"
SET ChatMusicVolume "0"
SET ChatSoundVolume "0.19999998807907"
SET ChatAmbienceVolume "0"
SET Sound_MasterVolume "0.5"
SET Sound_SFXVolume "0.60000002384186"
SET Sound_MusicVolume "0.5"
SET Sound_AmbienceVolume "0.69999998807907"
SET videoOptionsVersion "2"
SET groundEffectDist "70"
SET Sound_VoiceChatInputDriverIndex "1"
SET Sound_VoiceChatOutputDriverIndex "1"
SET Sound_OutputQuality "2"
SET Sound_NumChannels "64"
SET Sound_ZoneMusicNoDelay "1"
SET horizonfarclip "6226"
SET textureFilteringMode "0"
SET portal "eu"
SET installType "Retail"
SET patchlist "eu.version.worldofwarcraft.com"
SET gameTip "39"
SET VoiceActivationSensitivity "0.39999997615814"
SET environmentDetail "0.5"
SET showGameTips "0"
SET Sound_EnableHardware "1"
SET accounttype "BC"
SET specular "1"
SET Sound_EnableSoundWhenGameIsInBG "1"
SET particleDensity "0.10000000149012"
SET checkAddonVersion "0"
SET gxMaximize "1"
SET accountName "atoonsaccount"
SET baseMip "1"
SET EnableMusic "0"
SET Sound_EnableAllSound "0"

And this is my old eye candy Config.wtf I would love to use on my main:

SET gxWindow "1"
SET gxResolution "1680x1050"
SET maxfps "30"
SET maxFPSBk "30"
SET readTOS "1"
SET readEULA "1"
SET readScanning "-1"
SET readContest "-1"
SET hwDetect "0"
SET gxRefresh "60"
SET gxMultisampleQuality "0.000000"
SET farclip "1277"
SET movie "0"
SET realmList "eu.logon.worldofwarcraft.com"
SET realmName "Aegwynn"
SET gxTripleBuffer "1"
SET Gamma "1.200000"
SET weatherDensity "3"
SET locale "enGB"
SET timingTestError "3"
SET showToolsUI "0"
SET gxMultisample "8"
SET mouseSpeed "1"
SET coresDetected "4"
SET readTerminationWithoutNotice "1"
SET Sound_EnableReverb "1"
SET Sound_VoiceChatInputDriverName "Aureon 5.1 Fun Wave"
SET Sound_VoiceChatOutputDriverName "Aureon 5.1 Fun Wave"
SET Sound_OutputDriverName "System Default"
SET ChatMusicVolume "0"
SET ChatSoundVolume "0.19999998807907"
SET ChatAmbienceVolume "0"
SET Sound_MasterVolume "0.5"
SET Sound_SFXVolume "0.60000002384186"
SET Sound_MusicVolume "0.5"
SET Sound_AmbienceVolume "0.69999998807907"
SET shadowLevel "0"
SET videoOptionsVersion "2"
SET groundEffectDensity "64"
SET groundEffectDist "140"
SET Sound_VoiceChatInputDriverIndex "1"
SET Sound_VoiceChatOutputDriverIndex "1"
SET Sound_OutputQuality "2"
SET Sound_NumChannels "64"
SET Sound_ZoneMusicNoDelay "1"
SET horizonfarclip "6226"
SET textureFilteringMode "5"
SET portal "eu"
SET installType "Retail"
SET patchlist "eu.version.worldofwarcraft.com"
SET gameTip "39"
SET VoiceActivationSensitivity "0.39999997615814"
SET environmentDetail "1.5"
SET showGameTips "0"
SET Sound_EnableHardware "1"
SET accounttype "LK"
SET componentTextureLevel "9"
SET projectedTextures "1"
SET specular "1"
SET Sound_EnableSoundWhenGameIsInBG "1"
SET particleDensity "1"
SET checkAddonVersion "0"
SET gxMaximize "1"
SET lastCharacterIndex "1"
SET accountName "mymainaccount"

Thank you for reading this far!

[Fizzler]

Not sure what you are asking. You are getting low fps because you are running graphics on high. With your system specs I would not expect anything less.

[Ualaa]

Shadows are really hard on the system.
Multisampling more then x1 is a resource hog too.

View distance is about the only eye candy I have on, and only on the initial lead toon for each given team.
Innerspace lets you set a virtual config file, on a per toon basis. So I've taken my rogue and cranked her settings; prior to IS I'd just load one wow window and turn them up manually.

You could try to give the slave windows a much lower FPS, since you're not in those windows anyway. I cannot read chat in any of the slave windows; I can via assist, follow, macro's, interact with target etc give them 90% of the commands I care about or PiP swap for anything else. IS pip swap is almost instant, which is very nice. I've limited my slave windows to 10 FPS, which is the lowest IS will allow (was limiting them to 8 FPS in Keyclone).

Another good trick is to set a few views.
Basically go into wow keybinds, and assign a hotkey to set view 1 and say set view 2 (or whatever).
Now use your zoom and camera angle to be looking down from almost on top of the toon.
Click the hotkey to set this as view 1.
Then change the camera angle so you're looking down from a 30 degree angle and are "chasing" the toon, with maximum zoom out.
Click the hotkey to set this as view 2.
View 1, you'll only care about in cities, as looking at the ground on slaves is much less taxing on system resources.
View 4, you'll only care about when mouse broadcasting a ground target spell. All of the software options seem to have a way to accomplish this with various levels of success.
Ideally, you would have each of the Views configured the same for each toon.
You can make a macro which reads:

#show Hurricane
/script SetView(2);SetView(2)
/cast Hurricane

A couple threads on Views: http://www.dual-boxing.com/showthread.php?t=24379 and http://www.dual-boxing.com/showthread.php?t=18254

[vorticone]

Thanks, your reply made me check my settings in the right spot. I had multisampling still turned on. After setting it to 1x on all clients it runs just fine with full view distance and, at least on the main wow windows, all settings to the max except shadows (which are off).