Graphics stutter when 5-boxing since 5.x/MoP

[russeadg]

Hi all,

I have a high-end gaming laptop (i7 8-core, 16 GB, 2G nVidia 2000M, Win7) that was giving me smooth-as-glass framerates and play prior to 5.x/MoP, even with my main window on High quality settings in game. Now in 5.x, I get an interesting graphics stutter that seems to be limited to instances - it manifests as a 0.5-1.5 sec stutter whenever I cast a spell (I use the priority macro system when I 5-box, so all my button mashes broadcast keys to all 5 clients). My characters are still casting, and my dps is pretty much unaffected, though I have missed a couple heals as a result... I see posts all over the Blizz forums related to video lag and network latency, and at first I thought my issue was the same, but in trying all of those solutions (and understanding the specifics of those issues) I no longer think my issue is the same. If I had to guess, I would say my specific issue is related to rendering spell effects - every time all of my char's cast a spell (nuke, drop a totem, dungeon mob groups cast on incoming, etc.) I get the stutter that lasts through the fight. In between fights, I have smooth as glass response from all 5 clients, and interestingly in a standard dungeon group fight the "spikey-ness" lessens when fewer enemies are left in the fight. Against the Orgrimmar attack dummies I have almost no perceptible spikeyness, lag, or stutter. I have set the WoW client graphic detail in-game to “low” on all 5 clients, updated drivers, and no change as a result.

I'm not asking for any of you to offer the specific solution, as much as to just find out if I'm the only one experiencing this issue since I haven't really seen anything posted here specific to multibox lag.

Thanks in advance for any information (and apologies in advance to Lax as I cross-post over at the ISB forums).

[Meathead]

are you running it in dx11? are you running it in 64 bit? ha e you downloaded software that can read you temps or memory usage, all i can think of is that there is s bug with nvidia laptop drivers since i have the same gpu in my laptop.

[russeadg]

Hi Meathead,

I have tried both Dx9 and 11. I have not spent much time trying 32- vs. 64-bit WoW clients, is that worth doing? Is that an InnerSpace console configuration (I tried doing it in the WOW patcher but that seems to reset to default every time I check it)?

Meathead, are you having the same issue? With the same GPU that would make me feel better (not fo ryour issue, but for it not being something I can solve easily LOL).

I've done some testing with Afterburner and I can o/c pretty high, but definitely not a temp. problem. I will test some more and see if my game stuttering is related to GPU spiking...

Thanks for the reply!

[MiRai]

Sounds to me like your addons aren't up-to-date.

[russeadg]

Hi MiRai,

Thanks for the reply! I actually went there first, thinking the same thing... I'm only using Jamba (latest beta 3) and Recount (latest version), plus ISBoxer (fully patched). Thanks for the suggestion though!

[MiRai]

Hi MiRai,

Thanks for the reply! I actually went there first, thinking the same thing... I'm only using Jamba (latest beta 3) and Recount (latest version), plus ISBoxer (fully patched). Thanks for the suggestion though!

The behavior your describe is the exact behavior experienced when a combat mod (or other mods that watch the combat log) is not working properly. (e.g. Recount)

Did you actually disable the addons to see or did you just assume since they were "up-to-date" that they should work properly? Also, Recount was updated 1 hour ago.

[russeadg]

The update -

I did previously remove the Recount folder from \Addons during previouos testing, but did so again and I did notice a significant improvement (maybe 50% of my problem solved). I then upgraded to the latest version of Recount, and that solved another 40% of the original problem - I now have almost no noticeable stutter. I am still getting some latency spikes, which are easily distinguishable, but that's clearly network related.

Also, I did do some heavy Afterburner work and for sure the GPU does spike during those heavy fights, but never quite got to 100%. For anyone using the Quadro 2000M, it is very o/c friendly, I went to max o/c and was able to significantly upgrade the graphics quality of my main window without any negative impact.

Meathead, MiRai - I cannot thank you enough - that's exactly the kind of experienced help I needed. Many, many thanks!

I can't thank you guys

[MiRai]

Because it seems that Recount is the culprit, it's not a GPU issue. It would technically be a CPU issue because the data (Lua) is trying to be processed but something is locking it up for that half second.

Also, if you've got Recount loaded on all of your characters, it's probably only necessary to have it loaded on one of them (unless you're trying to compare some sort of DPS reporting inconsistency). And if all else fails, switch up your DPS meter to Skada or something else unless you require super fancy graphs (which I believe Skada has anyway with additional addon).