Old 5 boxing PC

[Nixi]

So I have a PC i've been using to 5 box for awhile. I keep reading about people having maxed out settings and running around WOW with a super computer, yet mine doesn't seem to measure up.

Q6600 quad, 2.4 ghz (Over clocked to 3.0)
4 Gig Ram
7200 RPM HD
8800 GT 512 meg video card
2 monitors 1 19" running my main toon and 1 22" running 4 alts
Graphics settings are at a minimum
Vista 32bit Ultimate
I let WOW autoselect the cores
I open all clients from 1 or 2 directories with about the same performance. (my biggest performance boost after i got this PC was opening wow from 2 directories instead of 5. I just haven't seen any large increases going from 2 to 1 though)

When I'm in the cities, it's hard to move around. Alterec Valley can get rather laggy too. When i'm out in an open area, i still can't have my 4 toons follow with epic flying mounts, i haven't used Crusader aura since I started 5 boxing.

I'm looking to upgrade this machine. What is the most likely culprit?

I'm about to get a 2nd 8800 GT 512 meg Video card and run my main from my 19" plugged into one card and let my 4 alts run on my 22" plugged into another card. Will this help at all?

I was asking around about a faster hard drive, and it seems only the server machines can run a harddisk at 10k rpm. Plus most people i talk to say it's more than likely not my hard disk.

If I decide I need a new CPU, is the intel 9450 or 6800 better for boxing? I only use this computer to play Wow. I might use it to open fraps and make videos, but the PC has no other use.

Lots of questions because I'm really confused about all this stuff.

Thanks in advance!

[wowphreak]

Its vista yeh need to look into setting it up for performance.
Start disabling/uninstalling all none essential stuff.

Could also be how yeh setup up yer desktop what modes the display

If yeh insist on "upgrading" it, I would go with vista64 and add 4 more gigs of ram
The rest of the hardware is overkill for running 5 instances of wow

[Zzyzxx71]

Vista 32bit Ultimate
I let WOW autoselect the cores
I open all clients from 1 or 2 directories with about the same performance. (my biggest performance boost after i got this PC was opening wow from 2 directories instead of 5. I just haven't seen any large increases going from 2 to 1 though)
I'm about to get a 2nd 8800 GT 512 meg Video card and run my main from my 19" plugged into one card and let my 4 alts run on my 22" plugged into another card. Will this help at all?

Few things...

If you're running keyclone manually set your affinity in there. I set Wow 1 to core 1 (NOT 0 - I run NO WOWS ON CORE 0!!) then 2 on 2, and 3 and 4 on 3. If you run a 5th run it on 2.

Get Vista 64 bit to use all your 4 gig.

Run your main client from 1 directory, and the rest of the slaves from 1 more.. .the more directories you have, the more disk IO you'll have.. .which is bad.

I run a 8800GT and a 7600GT... 2 monitors on the 8800, 1 on the 7600... no video issues as far as framerate whatsover.

`

[Nixi]

Get Vista 64 bit to use all your 4 gig.

That hit the nail on the head.

I bought a new 8800GT and plugged it in with 0 performance gain. Then I went with Vista 64 bit and I saw a HUGE performance increase. I went ahead and plugged another 4 gig of ram in, although I think that was overkill.

I'm probably gonna just use that extra video card and 4 gig of ram in another PC, so I don't consider this little trial and error project a waste of money. I had originally thought it was my HD or CPU, but because of everyones helpful replies I started tweaking the proper things.

I think i got another performance increase with using the core selections.

Thanks so much for the replys.

Btw- is there hardware available to open 10 copies of wow?

[Freddie]

I let WOW autoselect the cores

There's the problem. (Unless Blizzard changed something very recently.) WoW limits itself to cores 0 and 1, so you've been using only half of your CPU. You need to set affinity manually so Windows is free to place WoW's threads on all four cores.

If you use a third-party program to change affinity, check with Task Manager to make sure the affinity really changed.