Quad Core + Vista = Slowdown! !

ronis · Post by **ronis** » Sun Oct 21, 2007 4:50 pm

Any help would be greatly appreciated, tho I do not believe this is a WinEQ2Pro problem, I am asking for support from the community on fixing a time sensative problem. Having purchased an expensive new computer with a limited time to return it leaves me under the gun so I am turning to this community for any possible solutions.

Ive read all about problems with dual core processors and/or vista running EQ slower, but I just bought a new computer (from a vendor not self made) and it too is running slower, but its not dual core, its quad core.

Are there any work arounds for Quad Core Vista issues? I expected I would not have any problems but that was just ignorant i suppose.

Im getting massive slow downs and studder when playing. Im not hitting my page file (which was the cause of studder on my last computer). It does not seem to affect zoning much but just running around in studder motion is horrible.

Im running an Intel Q6600 CPU (2.4ghz), Vista Home Premium 64bit, 8GB RAM, 2x8800 GTX SLI. I bought this system from a vendor and it is otherwise working properly. This is my first attempt with both Vista and a multi-core processor but when Im boxing and I pull up my Task Manager I do see activity on all 4 processors (34%ish or so on each) - I get 6 boxes up and they automatically spread onto CPU#s: 0,0,1,1,2,3 and I get studder. Ive also tried putting all the EQ instances on CPU 0 with no improvement. And finally, Ive loaded just 1 EQ account and it too is running slow with studder, but not as bad as when I have more boxes up but still nearly unplayable. 2 instances of EQ is worse than 1; and 3 or more is the same as 6 instances up.

I have plenty of RAM and Video Card Memory available (when 6 boxes are loaded I have over 2 GB of RAM and over 1GB of Video RAM).

Any help would be greatly appreciated and Im fine being referred to any post that directly addresses this problem.

The Vendor said that they did a 4 day 100% burn in and that there were no problems discovered and I am operating under the assumption that the hardware is fine. I have checked the nVidia control panel and SLI is enabled but WinEQ2Pro shows I have only 8 FPS with 6 boxes all in the guild hall. Clearly something is wrong, probably a setting.

Any help/advise is tremendously appreciated.

Ron

ronis · Post by **ronis** » Sun Oct 21, 2007 10:54 pm

If it helps anyone, I was recently told that SLI and Vista did not play well together upon initial release. Can anyone confirm this and/or make any suggestions?

Post by **Lax** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 12:55 pm

Im getting massive slow downs and studder when playing. Im not hitting my page file (which was the cause of studder on my last computer). It does not seem to affect zoning much but just running around in studder motion is horrible.

post your sysinfo.txt from while you're running 1 session.

Can you describe the stuttering in more detail? There's a lot of different things that could be described as stuttering. For example, network issues can cause other players and mobs to rubberband. If your own character rubberbands or you start seeing camping messages multiple times or such, then it can be a problem with the game's threading (setting CPU affinity fixes this issue though) on the multiple cores. If you're just plain getting low framerate in the game, that's another issue.

You should try disabling SLI mode, to determine if that has anything to do with your issue as well.

ronis · Post by **ronis** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 4:42 pm

Disabling SLI worked, but now I have a $500 worthless piece of junk in the computer. All studdering is gone and EQ runs smooth as silk. I was able to 6box no problem today with SLI disabled.

Apparently Vista and SLI have a bad history together.

If needed, I can still post my sysinfo.txt but there has to be a workaround for this. Some seemingly insignificant-appearing setting ill bet...

eqjoe · Post by **eqjoe** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 4:52 pm

I am running XP64 on my dual nVidia 7950 setup. I could never get any 3D game to run properly on Vista, with or without InnerSpace.

-j

Post by **Lax** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 9:24 am

Disabling SLI worked, but now I have a $500 worthless piece of junk in the computer.

That's not true, you can have up to 4 monitors attached to your PC. If it were me, I would probably be running 2 monitors, with each handled by a separate physical video card. Then you just use the display selection feature of WinEQ 2 to launch sessions on the secondary display.

But, that really sucks about SLI.

ronis · Post by **ronis** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 5:08 pm

Im disabled and play in bed, i dont have room for another monitor at the moment. Im wondering if Vista SP1 will fix the problems or if I should just go with XP Pro 64.

eqjoe · Post by **eqjoe** » Thu Oct 25, 2007 8:35 am

XP64 is what I use because I need tons of RAM. With 4Gigs RAM and two SLI 7950s, I run 5 WoW sessions fairly smoothly (each game session gets about 24 fps). The MoBo is one of those Evga 860i with an Intel e6600. The fsb and memory buss are both running 1066 Mhz.

I am using Vista on my Dell M90 laptop, but I cant get a printer to work, and writing to a DVD or CD, or copying anything across the network is painfully slow. The coolest thing about Vista is Office 2007.... but wait, you can run that on XP with no problems.

-j