Too good to be true?

[MiRai]

Well,

To summarize it when I stand in front of a portal or some other highly active graphical feature my setup slows to a crawl in single digit numbers when 5 boxing.

I don't see how that could be normal. Maybe my hardware is slightly overheating due to being on fan cooling. Thinking of switching to water cooled soon but don't want to water cool a setup I'm going to replace anyways.

First of all, don't water cool your current setup.

Second, it could be very normal depending on what your video settings are set at. The quad-core you're
currently boxing on can't handle a whole lot after the graphics engine update that came with Cataclysm.
You also don't list your video cards. You say they're nVidia GTX but, there are numerous nVidia GTX cards
available.

[MadMilitia]

First of all, don't water cool your current setup.

Second, it could be very normal depending on what your video settings are set at. The quad-core you're
currently boxing on can't handle a whole lot after the graphics engine update that came with Cataclysm.
You also don't list your video cards. You say they're nVidia GTX but, there are numerous nVidia GTX cards
available.

Graphics: All on low settings.

Cards: I bought these a year or more ago. I don't remember what they were because I don't have the boxes and windows insists on telling me they are 460s due to the generic driver. They are in actuality 275s from what I recall.


Isn't WoW far more cpu intensive than it is gpu intensive?

In any event it seems you agree with me that the Q9650 is the bottleneck here.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Before you go upgrading hardware and spending money, you can check a couple of things to narrow down your variables:

• If you're using the latest NVidia drivers, it has a GPU temperature monitor. Open that when you're having issues and post what temps you're seeing. Typically <80C is OK for GPUs. If you're going over 80, it needs attention.
• Download CoreTemp and run it. Report what your core temps are (all 4) when you're seeing the problem. Typically, sub 75C is fine. A good air heatsink should keep a Q series below 55-60C even when multiboxing.
• Go into the WoW advanced video settings and start disabling checkboxes one at a time and see if one of those makes the problem go away. You will have to restart the clients for some of those. As an example, my old ATI 5850 would absolutely choke (5fps) when I turned on terrain highlighting. Disabling that one setting and the card would run liquid smooth at 60fps.

[edit] Despite setting things to LOW graphics, some checkboxes may still be enabled.

Also, you can go into the NVidia control panel and set the 3D settings to "high performance" and turn off things like anisotropic filtering, antialiasing, etc.

[Apps]

I just skimmed but looking at the ISBoxer file, it looks like you are trying to 5 box with all background on 30fps, and foreground on 60fps, while using a quad core system, I can only guess the RAM is likely DDR2?

I may be off here, but running that much is quite a load on your pc. If you are seeing a 1 sec lag on your repeater regions in more graphic intensive areas, I'd consider myself lucky. What are your game graphic setting on? all low? if not, they should be.

[MadMilitia]

I just skimmed but looking at the ISBoxer file, it looks like you are trying to 5 box with all background on 30fps, and foreground on 60fps, while using a quad core system, I can only guess the RAM is likely DDR2?

I may be off here, but running that much is quite a load on your pc. If you are seeing a 1 sec lag on your repeater regions in more graphic intensive areas, I'd consider myself lucky. What are your game graphic setting on? all low? if not, they should be.

All low settings and the head is fair.

The RAM is DDR2 yes.

Ughmahedhurtz,

The temp right now on my 275GTX is well within normal. 51 degrees Celsius.

The CPU is hitting approximately 85-95% usage even at idle positions with the 5 accounts rendering.

I'm gonna try and drop the FPS to the slaves down enormously as I don't usually look at these windows. We'll see how it goes.

By the way, thank you all for showing an interest in this sub topic.

[Apps]

Good call. Id lower the Background too. Even at 30 fps, you're likely straining the 275GTX. By the looks of it, you are tweaking the last little bit of performance out of your current system. You should be about done. Let us know how you did. Good luck!

[Ualaa]

There's a point (FPS), where the slave windows will start to lose follow.
I'd not put them below 15 FPS (I think it's around 12 FPS, where follow breaks in Everquest; I know we're talking Warcraft here).

[MadMilitia]

Guys,

Just to update from where we left off.

5 boxing 60/30 TANKED in Ogrimmar routinely and also in some intense encounters.

60/10 is not tanking anywhere and Ogrimmar is holding at 25-30 FPS on the main. Works at about 40 in cata dungeons so I'm good for now.

Low settings on 4 slaves, High settings on master. Works just fine.

Going to give grid/clique a second chance too, to see if there is still that latency between sessions.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

One other thing possibly worth noting: if you have a ton of addons installed, it will kill your client performance. Sucks, but LUA is what it is.

[MadMilitia]

One other thing possibly worth noting: if you have a ton of addons installed, it will kill your client performance. Sucks, but LUA is what it is.

Yep, figured that would be costly too.

So recount and isboxer is it. Nothing else.

If I do run grid/clique again it'll be grid/clique on heals, just grid on tank.

Feeling I really do need to be on the tank now as doing a dungeon crawl is a LOT different than running after players in PvP.