Aggravated.

[Gallo]

Yes! if you have 5 wow's running, you should have a command for loading each one. Inside the command editor, you can choose which processor core you use. For 2 of them, you should use Core0. For the other 3, use Core1. This may solve your lag problem. Dual core processors allow you to spread the CPU load over 2 "cores" which act as their own individual processors.

[keyclone]

Hi Trikk,

have you set the maxfpsbk and maxfps ?

if not, you definitely should if you are using keyclone, set them within the command editor.. setting maxfpsbk to 15 and maxfps to 40

let me know if that helps.

[Chorizotarian]

Also, does your ping time steadily increase as you launch more copies of WoW? What is your ping time?
Reducing latency

[Dezeral]

Gallo and Keyclone have pointed out the most likely ways to increase your performance, but another thing to consider here is the resolution and graphic detail of each window. An 8500gt will probably not handle max graphic detail with a very high resolution (1600x1200 or higher).

Things to look at either though the WoW video settings or through the Nvidia control panel:
Anti-aliasing (aka AA) - probably want this at 1x, 2x, or 4x (I use two 8800GTs and even 4x is a noticeable performance hit with 4 WoWs running at 1440x900 each). Set this to which ever setting still gives you playable frame rates. 2x is probably about all you'll be able to handle.
Anistropic-Filtering (aka AF) - 2x, 4x, 8x. Again, set this to whichever gives you playable frame rates. 4x gives a decent looking picture without stressing out your video card.

Under the WoW video settings:
Spell detail - lowering your spell detail can greatly lower the load on your video card.
Terrain distance - the more terrain you video card has to draw, the more work it has to do (this is compounded by having more instances of WoW running). Try moving the slider down some and see if it improves your frame rates. If you PVP a lot, you might want to lower other settings first so that you can see further into the distance before you lower the terrain distance.
Terrain detail - This is just eye candy. You can set this all the way down to see if it helps your frame rates.
Texture resolution - This again is eye candy, but the game can get really fugly with the lowest texture settings. If your WoW windows are tiny already, then you might not notice the detail too much if you lower the texture resolution.

To check how these settings affect your frame rates, turn on the FPS indicator in WoW. I believe the default keybinding for it is CTRL+R or CTRL+F. You can look under your keybindings to see what it is bound to. Or, if you can use FRAPS to check your frame rates. FRAPS is a utility you can download that has several handy features. If you go the extra step and pay for FRAPS, you can record your very own movies. But for what you're trying to do here, the built in FPS display of WoW will do just fine.

[Havelcek]

I find that a big performance savings in WOW is turning off shadows. That seems to be a resource hog.

[Taffy]

You guys are an amazingly patient core of helpy helpers. Thanks so much for all the little nips of advice.


My girls are running like champs now...right in the middle of Ironforge. :>

/happy

Now...when my xkeys shows up thursday...

[keyclone]

well then... hold on there cow-poke....

you can't just say thanks and run. you have to describe which piece advise actually helped...
(this will help the next person coming down the pike)

[Eteocles]

I dunno about you but that Reducing Latency trick helped me a bit...years ago when I first started my pings would be 60-100ish..usually around 60ish. As patches came and went my ping kept climbing and was steadily 160+ at all times, god forbid busy sunday night raid nights, and the patch blizz did to help latency via their commands/nagle algorithm didn't do shit; I initially tried that trick on my own registry and it didn't seem to make a difference...but, I had 2 entries in my registry that both contained my IP and I had only put the TcpAckFrequency line in one of them; recently I was sick of the lag and put the line into BOTH entries...rebooted and I've had a permanent 60-70ms ping since.

I also use maxfps 64, and maxfpsbk 20, all 3 windows full-size windows(1280x1024, all settings same/mid to maxed out) runs smoothly on my dual-core + 7900gs + 2gb system ram

[Taffy]

well then... hold on there cow-poke....

you can't just say thanks and run. you have to describe which piece advise actually helped...
(this will help the next person coming down the pike)

Oh, sorry, Sir!

"Yes! if you have 5 wow's running, you should have a command for loading each one. Inside the command editor, you can choose which processor core you use. For 2 of them, you should use Core0. For the other 3, use Core1. This may solve your lag problem. Dual core processors allow you to spread the CPU load over 2 "cores" which act as their own individual processors."

setting maxfpsbk to 15 and maxfps to 40

I find that a big performance savings in WOW is turning off shadows.

It's really hard to say all that I've read to better get a grasp on it all. I've poured over site after site...reading tutorials, blogs, everything I can get my eyes on. It's been a great learning experience. My brain is happy to have the challenge...it tells me this when I go after the bottle of ibuprofen.


EDIT: As for this....

PATA? SATA? SATA II? RPM? Access Speed? Etc?

I have NO idea.

[Eteocles]

I've no clue what PATA is myself...SATAs're those funny little HDs that use thin cable to attach instead of the floppy-esque IDE cables; SATA is much faster, SATA II is even faster than that, and both are far superior to their IDE predecessors.