Getting back into WoW / Boxing, need hardware advice.

[spher0boom]

You should try running it all off your primary PC. I'm currently 5-boxing on an overclocked i7 950 (@3.6Ghz) with 12GB of system memory. I got two 24" screens hooked to that box and have one client fullscreen and the other 4 on the second screen. 50% downsampled 1920x1200 is close enough to the resolution of your tertiary screens (1280x1024) I think you wont lose much here. I'm running all clients in DX11 with one client on high settings and the others on low-medium, the slaves capped at 20fps.

This is very encouraging, thanks!

For the GPU you most likely want a non-SLI setup because SLI will give you only very low increase in performance but alot of problems and issues. My GTX 580 is already overkill for that setup since I'm running into CPU-limitations when LFR-ing rather that GPU-limits. I'd still replace that HD 6870 because WoW performs better on Nvidia cards and you want a card with 3-4GB of video memory for 5 clients.

I ordered a 670, so this is also very encouraging!

Performance-wise its quiet good on a single box, fps on the main client is 25-40 in capitals. In 40-man BGs it dropped down to 20 in crowded areas but Blizzard solved that problem by removing /follow from BGs. In 25-man raids (LFR) it gets worse by dropping to 10-15 which is close to being unplayable (yet I still do good dps I just dont move). Problem here is the CPU (I see all cores close to 100%) not the GPU.

Well, this part worries me a bit. I was hoping to keep 30+fps on the main worst case. Perhaps if I add a second GPU for two fo teh screens I can alleviate this issue.

As for software - ISboxer supports multi-computer configurations I just cant comment anything about that because I never tried that (running of one box only). I think its recommended somewhere to run all clients at the same resolution when using ISboxer.

I've never used it before, but it's on my list this time to try.

Thanks for the encouraging feedback!

[RSM72]

Well, this part worries me a bit. I was hoping to keep 30+fps on the main worst case. Perhaps if I add a second GPU for two fo teh screens I can alleviate this issue.

WoW is very cpu-intensive that is the main problem performance-wise. Without a six- or eight-core cpu you wont come close to any limit of your 670.

[MiRai]

I saw this in one of Ualaa's posts last night, and went looking for it after that. A couple of forum posts identified WoW users who reported that when clicking on secondary screens InputDirector was also still clicking on the primary screen, so I didn't end up trying it. If that isn't the case for most users I'll go give it a try if I end up using multiple PCs.

Not entirely sure on that. I know a lot of people use Input Director with ISBoxer (Synergy has shown to cause issues) when using two different computers to play. I only multibox on one machine, but I've had ID installed for years so I can use both of my machines at once. I can't say that I've heard of many ID issues as of lately.

Yes, I'm talking about 2 different monitor resolutions off the same GPU. I'm not sure what the problem was, it wasn't identified in the post, I believe you were still looking in to it. I don't know what the P-State is ... I'll do some research, thanks!

P-States are power states. Multiple monitors of different resolutions (or refresh rates) or having your cards in SLI will cause the main GPU to not downclock to its idle state. You can force it to downclock via third-party tools like nVidia Inspector, but if you don't remember to turn it back up when you begin to play you're going to realize very quickly that something is wrong. Years ago I was manually forcing power states on my cards so that they'd be idle when I wasn't playing games... that lasted about a week before I got tired of continuously forgetting to turn it back to its normal state and having my games load up at 3 FPS.

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My Preference would be to have two 23" 1080p monitors in portrait mode on either side of my primary and do 4 x 1080x810 windows for he slaves, but i'd have to buy 3 new monitors and end up limiting myself to 4 instead of 6 given my space, which doesn't work well with the other tasks the computers perform.

1080x810 seems like an odd aspect ratio (1.33), you would get better visual quality on those screens if you tried to keep the AR as close to your main client's resolution as you can (1920/1080 = 1.78). Not to mention, if you ever felt like disabling ISBoxer's instant swapping and wanted the mouse cursors in each window to sorta line up, then the AR would need to be close to identical on each screen.

I have the extra 8800GTS cards. Would one of them come close to supporting two 1280x1024 WoW sessions on medium settings? I'd be happy with 4 1280x1024 windowed slaves. If not, what would be the minimum card I should look at as a secondary if I attempt go this route?

I think you need to just get your new GPU and see how it handles five clients @ 1920x1080 and then go from there.

The mouse broadcasting thing is actually something I completely forgot about. I used to use Octopus and HotKeyNet, which did relative movements, so my screens never had to be the same resolution. This time around I was going to try ISBoxer since everyone here seems to love it. I have a lot of learning to do around ISBoxer, but I see several forum member have put together nice guides, so I have a good place to start . Does ISBoxer offer any 'relative' mouse broadcasting capabilities if I chose to not use the same resolution on all clients?

Yes, you can disable instant swapping and scale your mouse cursor to fit to the windows.

[spher0boom]

1080x810 seems like an odd aspect ratio (1.33), you would get better visual quality on those screens if you tried to keep the AR as close to your main client's resolution as you can (1920/1080 = 1.78). Not to mention, if you ever felt like disabling ISBoxer's instant swapping and wanted the mouse cursors in each window to sorta line up, then the AR would need to be close to identical on each screen.

I didn't think about that ... I'll scale them to the same aspect ratio. I'm using 16:10 (1920x1200) so I'll get a little extra vertical space out of it any way.

I think you need to just get your new GPU and see how it handles five clients @ 1920x1080 and then go from there.

Well, Amazon delivered me a used card today instead of the new one I purchased. I'm a little hesitant to install it and play with it while waiting for the new one to arrive since I don't know if it was returned because it was defective. I'm not very happy about this since I had planned on trying it tonight

My 6870 couldn't do a single 1920x1200 session with all ultra settings without it being 'jerky' when I ran. In the human starting area I was only getting 45fps.

This site (http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html) lists the passmark ratings, and the 670 is rated at 5,349 compared to the 6870's 2,555 rating, so I'm hoping for a vast improvement. The 680 was only rated at 5,682, which is why I didn't grab it ... seems like a small improvement for $100.

Yes, you can disable instant swapping and scale your mouse cursor to fit to the windows.

I started going through the ISBoxer tutorials last night after I posed. You did a very nice job on them, and make the settings easy to understand, so thank you. My 7-day trial was activated today so I can play with it tonight no matter which card I have installed.

Thanks!

[MiRai]

This site (http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html) lists the passmark ratings, and the 670 is rated at 5,349 compared to the 6870's 2,555 rating, so I'm hoping for a vast improvement. The 680 was only rated at 5,682, which is why I didn't grab it ... seems like a small improvement for $100.

If you can tell me what those numbers mean then I won't entirely discredit that site. How do those numbers pertain to FPS in World of Warcraft while multiboxing? Actually, how do those numbers pertain to FPS in any game?

The answer is... They don't. I'm not being a dick or calling you out, but too many people rely on that site to make their next big purchase and it really doesn't tell you much of anything except that the GTX 670 gets 5,349 points. Points for what?

No review site that I know of uses Passmark in any of their benchmark compilations -- I would suggest sticking to looking at gaming benchmarks at high resolutions (1920x1080 and up) in order to make future purchases.

I started going through the ISBoxer tutorials last night after I posed. You did a very nice job on them, and make the settings easy to understand, so thank you.

Thanks. My video tutorials are mostly out-of-date at the moment because ISBoxer 41 just came out and a lot of things don't match up, but I'm working on it.

[spher0boom]

If you can tell me what those numbers mean then I won't entirely discredit that site. How do those numbers pertain to FPS in World of Warcraft while multiboxing? Actually, how do those numbers pertain to FPS in any game?

The answer is... They don't. I'm not being a dick or calling you out, but too many people rely on that site to make their next big purchase and it really doesn't tell you much of anything except that the GTX 670 gets 5,349 points. Points for what?

Feel free to call me out, and I wouldn't consider you a dick in doing so. You are trying to help me meet my gaming needs. If i did something dumb you should tell me. A dick wouldn't have replied 4 times with pages of text

I agree that those are not real world numbers, and I would never make a purchase on the passmark score. I only looked there to try and get a rough quantifiable idea of how much better the 680 was compared to the 670, given the 680 was 25% more as far as cost. The primary decision point in selecting that card were the reviews I read and the forum posts that said the 670 was close to a 680, and that you could OC a 670 to reach 680 performance easily if you bought the right card. However, most of the data I could find as far as 670 vs 680 was forum posts and not actual game reviews from reputable sources, so I was looking for some confirmation. I found the performance of my 6870 very disappointing, and just wanted some quantifiable reference to the new cards as the reviews that I found for 6870 were done at different resolutions, so I had a harder time comparing performance.

My intent is to do exactly what you indicated. Get the card installed and try it for my self. I'll start with full 1080p and work my way down if necessary. I've actually decided to try the card amazon sent, which could work out well. Tomorrow I'll have 2 cards for a few day, so I can try SLI and a variety of configurations across my two primary workspaces. I also have a standing workstation with a 24" Landscape and 23" portrait monitor, which I hadn't thought about using for gaming. However, it may work out better for boxing in the end. It's attached to the secondary workstation with the i5, so I grabbed an ivy bridge i7 on the way home tonight based on the results I saw in your hyper-threading numbers and your reccommendation to use the 2600K system.

Thanks. My video tutorials are mostly out-of-date at the moment because ISBoxer 41 just came out and a lot of things don't match up, but I'm working on it.

Ok, I'll start complaining to you tomorrow then

I do appreciate the time and effort you put into posts on this site, it has helped me immensely, so thank you very much!

-spher0boom.