Almost Christmas - New PC Time!

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Publication par Wanderingfox

Just don't forget to run /console set processaffinitymask "85" to take advantage of that i7. Also, buy a better heatsink, and OC that i7 up to 4ghz. It's pretty easy if you have a decent heat sink. I've got mine running at 4.00 with a thrermalright ultra 120, and I'm running at sub-50c temps across all cores idle, and under 90c temps full load.

You may also want to look into upping the allocated texture cache size wow uses as well. Saw a pretty hefty improvement myself in heavy texture areas (like dal at prime time) when switching from 32mb (default) to 256mb (only have a 512mb video card). Just don't set it over 512mb (or half your video card's ram, whichever is lower).

How to increase WoW's texture cache size:
First of all, you need to know the memory size of your graphics card. This can either be found in your graphics card's display panel, or listed in dxdiag (start -> run -> dxdiag -> display tab).

Once you have the size of your cards memory (usually 128, 256, 512, 768, or 1024). You need to do a little math (as the console command requires input in bytes).

Take the size of your card's memory and replace it in the following equation: (Memory / 2) * 1024 * 1024

This is the number you need to put at the end of the command, which is /console texturecachesize

So for example, if you have a 512mb graphics card, you'd use: /console texturecachesize 268435456

The default value is: /console texturecachesize 33554432

Once done, you'll need to completely restart the game client for the change to take effect.

WARNING!
This setting can cause crashes if your system's ram is unstable, or you're running multiple copies of the game, etc. It is simply an edit to your config.wtf file, and can be reset to default by deleting the appropriate line in that file. Also, use at your own risk :P I will, however, note that I recieved almost 15 more fps in Dalaran during prime-time doing this :P

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Publication par Wanderingfox

Right inside the game, as if you were typing an emote (ie. open chat box, type command, hit enter).

The first command (/console set processaffinitymask "85") is what tells wow what cores of your processor to run on. The core i7 has 8 logical cores (4 physical), these cores alternate physical/hyperthreaded, so cores 0, 2, 4, and 6 are your physical cores, and cores 1, 3, 5, and 7 are your hyperthreaded cores. To get the most out of your i7, you want WoW to run on the 2 least used physical cores (WoW will only run on 2 threads max). What this means, is by setting your process affinity mask to 85 (1010101), you tell WoW to "run on these 4 cores" which are your 4 physical cores. Windows will then differ WoW's 2 threads onto the two least used of these 4 cores. This generally leaves WoW running on 2 cores, and Windows on the other 2 (and thus your speed increase).

The second slash command has to do with your graphics card. By default, WoW will only cache (keep in memory) 32 megabytes of texture information. This means when you go to someplace with a lot of textures, or move from one location to another, WoW gets rid of the least used textures in its cache to make room for the new ones. By increasing this cache size, you reduce the amount of times WoW has to load these textures from your hard drive (because the cache is bigger, the needed textures are more likely to already be cached). This, in turn, means that you have faster loading times on loading screens, especially when moving from one place to another within the same zone, as well as when you're dealing with lots of different textures at once (Dalaran for example).

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Publication par Wanderingfox

There are no drawbacks to using the first command (/console set processaffinitymask "85"). The only drawback to the second command, is that you're using more of your graphics card's ram, and as such, have less space for other applications, so if you're running another game along with wow, or something similar, you'll see performance drops there. There is also the '2gb limit' I briefly mentioned earlier, which happens when a single 32bit application (like WoW) allocates more than 2gb of ram (either on the GPU or your actual ram). This has to do with address limitations of 32 bit applications, and you should not ever even see this crash unless WoW is flooding the memory pool with bad, not garbage-collected data.

All core i7's have hyperthreading. I suppose I should explain the term though, as it will help clarify my previous example. Normal (no hyperthreading) CPUs execute a single instruction per cycle. Hyperthreading is a means of weaving a second instruction inside of the first one, thus allowing the CPU to execute two instructions simultaneously. The obvious advantage of this is now you have a second 'virtual' CPU running along with the first one. This is normally great, as it allows you to compute twice as many things in the same amount of time, but when a thread (a section of linear code) is executed, it's typically locked onto the CPU it was started on. This means that WoW (which runs its code in two separate threads), will launch each thread on a separate CPU. However, if both of those threads happen to land on the same physical core (one running on the real core, and one running on the hyperthreaded core), you'll actually see a DROP in performance.

This performance drop occurs because a hyperthreaded core is not exactly as fast as a physical core. What that process affinity mask does is prevent wow from launching on your hyperthreaded cores, thus preventing the problem of it running both threads on the same core by forcing it to only run on your physical cores. Other applications will still run on the hyperthreaded cores, but by separating WoW's two threads, you'll gain a bit more performance as the game will not have to wait for the thread on the hyperthreaded core as much. Long story short: Physical Core x2 is faster than Physical Core + Hyperthreaded Core.

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Publication par vtecjunkie81

I think something like this would be a little more efficient than that monster you linked lol. The truth is, the one you're looking at is kinda overkill for WoW, especially with dual 4890's. At peak, 2 of these cards will draw almost 400W(!) of power, so that 650W PSU will be straining pretty hard. One 5770 will be plenty to run WoW at full settings, especially if you clock that i5 to 3.0-3.2 Ghz.

Of course, if you play any other games that are more graphically intensive than WoW, then by all means get the dual GPU system. Just make sure you upgrade that PSU to at least 800W.

My suggestion would be to get the system I linked (or one similar to it) and use that extra $350 to get a nicer monitor or a better sound system (or mouse, or keyboard, or sandwich!)

Publication par PTsICU

all I can offer is I bought a PC from cyberpowerpc.com over a year ago, and love it. Good price, good machine, and great selection.

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Publication par Wanderingfox

The core i5 also does not have hyperthreading... a 4ghz core i5 is only half as fast as a 4ghz core i7 running at full load. Granted that does not have much of an impact on WoW as it will only run on a max of 2 cores, but if you're multi boxing, it's possible to run 4 copies of wow on one i7 with none of the copies sharing a logical processor core :P

Publication par Wanderingfox

Did you even read my post?

Let me highlight some things...
The core i5 also does not have hyperthreading... a 4ghz core i5 is only half as fast as a 4ghz core i7 running at full load. Granted that does not have much of an impact on WoW as it will only run on a max of 2 cores, but if you're multi boxing, it's possible to run 4 copies of wow on one i7 with none of the copies sharing a logical processor core :P

You can run 4 simultaneous copies of wow on a core i7 and they will run twice as fast as 4 copies on a core i5.

edit:
Was responding to someone pushing product links on people, seems to have had his posts blasted into oblivion... I am not just talking to myself, at least not yet :P

Publication par vtecjunkie81

edit:
Was responding to someone pushing product links on people, seems to have had his posts blasted into oblivion... I am not just talking to myself, at least not yet :P

I was beginning to wonder if that guy worked for ATI or something...

To the OP: I'd listen to this guy. He seems to know a thing or two about computers...

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Almost Christmas - New PC Time!

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