Weird FPS issues

[Multibocks]

OK so I have two computers running 5 clients each (soon to go to 10 each for world pvp). I keep looking at other people's configs and what they are getting out of them and can't help but feel something is wrong. I'm not sure how to trouble shoot this though. Anyways, my main windows (account 1 and 6) have great fps and feel silky smooth (60FPS). However, I can switch to the others and some accounts, I think 3 and 8?, have 60fps BUT it doesnt feel smooth at all. It's really hard to describe, but its like you are watching a slide show. Obviously it isn't that extreme as it maintains 50ish minimum FPS when moving around. I don't really know how else to describe it, but it annoys the shit out of me and I am glad I don't have to stay on those accounts as my main view very often. I think there are two possible issues here: computers or ISBoxer.

I have all my accounts doing round robin option from ISBoxer on the CPUs. I am thinking maybe I should try and select all cores for all accounts. Other than that I don't even know what to check. One more thing, I see people with similar setups claiming 60fps on main account in ultra settings with other 4 accounts at 60fps and okish graphics settings. I don't even know how they are pulling that off. Maybe I need to switch to DX11? I can do 60fps at 1600x1200 and the slaves at 30fps with all being around medium settings (I might set the slaves with a lower view distance though). If I bumped it up to Ultra on the main and good on the slaves there is no way I will maintain 60fps. Sigh.

fyi: computers are i-7 3770k 16GB ram evga 680gtx 4gb 240GB corsair force gt SSD and i-7 2600k 16GB ram evga 680gtx 4gb with plextor 250GB m5pro. So what gives?

[daviddoran]

I assume you are using ISBoxer Window swapping? I've had that exact same problem, and from what I can tell, it's a performance penalty caused by the GPU rendering information but displaying it on a display powered by another GPU, such as the onboard.

The best way to do it is to not cross GPUs, meaning your main screen is on the same GPU as all of the slave windows.

I ended up upgrading to a 6 core CPU and it did wonders to my performance. One thing that helped my performance, was to have no wow clients using CPU 0, leaving windows, and internet windows their own CPU.

Also you could try overclocking.

[Multibocks]

Interesting, thanks for the help. I'll see what happens with freeing up CPU zero. Currently I have only one video card per computer, so that shouldn't be an issued with window swapping.

[Ualaa]

I haven't attempted more than five clients.

I have the six core CPU, i7 3930K.
The physical cores are 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 and 11 (in IS Boxer) but 0, 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 (elsewhere).
With the logical cores being one number higher.

I've got 1/2 unassigned for Warcraft.
Meaning that core/logical core is free for Windows, XSplit, Firefox, iTunes, etc.
And then so far, I have great performance with one physical core (plus its corresponding logical core) per warcraft client.

I run the main on Medium settings, DX 9.
And the slaves on Low-Medium settings, also DX 9.
(Basically maxed View Distance on Characters, Creatures & Objects) and middle settings on most other stuff, but minimal on Shadows, Water, Sunshafts, Spell Effects, Weather...
The system could handle Ultra settings on DX 9, but that pushed the system to 75%, give or take (and only for five boxing).
As a test, Ultra x5 on DX 11 was close to 100% on the video resources and fluctuated up to 80% on the CPU (again, with only five clients)...
Ram and HD (2x SSD in Raid0) weren't close to bottlenecks.

So I honestly don't think anyone is going to have great performance with Ultra on a main window, even if the other clients are at lower settings.
And if you're using a swap settings mapped key, the greater the difference in settings the slower the swap is to execute; ideally, you'd want high and low settings to be fairly close.
DX 9 is less of a system strain than DX 11, if you want performance... although DX 11 does look a bit better.



I'm not sure how one core + its' logical core will run, with two clients.
Or if it would be better to have five cores + five logical cores running all ten clients.
Five boxing on Medium & Medium-Low settings doesn't push the system at all (typically with iTunes or VLC Player, XSplit, 10-12 Firefox tabs and uTorrent also running).

CPU: i7 3930K
MB: Sabertooth X79
Ram: 32GB, 1600MHz, CL8
Video: 4GB eVGA GTX 670, Superclocked
HD: 2x OCZ Vertex 3, in Raid0.
Windows 7, 64-bit Pro.
Internet: Broadband 250.

[Multibocks]

Yeah I should have gotten the 6 core. Oh well.