I think I just wasted $1000 on upgrades (Vista64, 8GB Ram, Dual 9800gtx)

[Nitro]

The Final Verdict:

Got off work today and back to trying to track down the problem. The first thing I did was unplug monitor #2 from card number #2 and plug it into card #1 (effectivley giving me the same setup i use to have just with a new video card). I booted into my old XP Pro drive and set the dual monitors back to a spanned desktop so i could get a baseline of performance of the 9800GTX 512 vs the 8800 Ultra OC 768.

No fuckin joke, the 9800GTX smoked it hands down and I can now run through shat or ogr or sunwell with all 5 toons on one box at a whopping 40-50 fps. I couldnt be happier except if i woulda saved alot of money and just purchased one video card

Vista64 - dont bother, for 5 boxing on one machine vista is a waste of time, Xp Span mode is where its at.

Memory - Anything more than 4Gb is just not needed as has been mentioned by a few members of this forum before.

Dual Video Cards - I dont know why but this just seems to do nothing for us trash except trash our fps.

After reading all the reviews about the 9800gtx and most of them reflecting that its a trade off back on forth against the 8800 ultra i was very surprised, to be honest it did perform better in thier tests without AA running at some silly number so for 5 boxing wow this is one sweet card. Should be interesting to see how it holds up on an 8 hour run of high pop areas, ill report back on this later and let you all know.


I'm so happy to be running through cities 5 toons on 1 box at 40+ FPS - Goal Achieved and thanks for all your comments guys! :thumbsup:

[Chorizotarian]

Vista64 - dont bother, for 5 boxing on one machine vista is a waste of time, Xp Span mode is where its at.

Dual Video Cards - I dont know why but this just seems to do nothing for us trash except trash our fps.

I've had similar problems with Vista x64 and multiple cards/monitors, but I'm not willing to go back to XP due to security and other reasons. I might be willing to try Vista x32 though. Does anyone have a feel for whether the multiple GPU issues are better there?

[Menthu]

My computer hardware is the following:

Q6600 Quad Core
8800 GT 756 MB Vid Card
4 Gig Corsair 8xx Mhz

I play 4 chars and I get 45 FPS on ALL wow screens in Shat. I play on 1 PC and on 1 monitor.

just a note to compare you system with or for someone who is looking for a system.

<3 Menthu

[Havelcek]

Interesting post...I am close to ordering Vista64 with 8gb of RAM for new 5-box machine but this has made me pause.

[aetherg]

Hardware is always on diminishing returns. Past a certain point, you can spend a ton of money and not see much improvement. SLI in particular is completely not worth it. From my experience, the numbers in graphics card reviews are amazingly inflated. In your case, it sounds like there's a bottleneck somewhere other than video cards or RAM. You're probably constrained by your bus or just the operating system.

[OzPhoenix]

I have one computer in my house with Vista. (wife's laptop). My brother also has vista on his new laptop. Not a day goes by that at least one of us says "I hate this thing".

That, and the constant: "Are you sure?" "Are you sure?" "Are you sure?" "Are you sure?" is enough to make anyone go crazy.

And yes, I hate it.

You can turn of the Are you sure thingy.

Are you sure?

[Crucial]

I'd love to know why having a second dedicated video card driving a second monitor is not any faster (in fact it seems slower) than having 1 video card drive 2 monitors... I had a 7900GTX OC sitting on the shelf and threw it in with the 8800GTS with a monitor connected to each and there was no improvement at all. This is running on Vista 32 with 4 gigs of ram, and WD raptor drives - all running on one wow installation.

[Havelcek]

I thought I read somewhere that there is a driver problem where the 2nd card's renderer will actually not be utilized at all. I don't know if this is true or not.

[Crucial]

I thought I read somewhere that there is a driver problem where the 2nd card's renderer will actually not be utilized at all. I don't know if this is true or not.

DOH! Think this might be Vista only related?

[Havelcek]

I thought I read somewhere that there is a driver problem where the 2nd card's renderer will actually not be utilized at all. I don't know if this is true or not.


DOH! Think this might be Vista only related?

I wouldn't be shocked if its a WoW problem.