PwnBoxer key broadcasting is breaking

[xunil76]

yeah, i know that about the refresh rate being the maximum fps i can get.....and i've tried enabling the fps limit and setting it to 60, but it still doesn't get the 60 fps, it's only getting ~30-ish fps....that's why i'm reporting the problem.

as i posted before, it seems that anytime i launch WoW using PwnBoxer, my main screen is always only getting ~30-ish fps. however, when i enable vsync, then disable it again, i start getting the "reported" 100+ fps (really only 60), and everything runs buttery-smooth, but then the key broadcasting in PwnBoxer no longer works until i completely close both instances of WoW and start them up again with PwnBoxer.....but when i do that, my framerates are crap again.

[xunil76]

well, i've made progress on this issue....it has to do (partly) with a combination of launching the game(s) via PB & running WoW in windowed mode. read on for more (much more) details. sorry for the novel, but you'll see all the steps i went through...and the problem still remains (although not quite as bad).

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so when i first set up my dual-monitor setup, i had to set WoW to run in windowed mode (maximized) on the main screen so that i could simply drag my mouse over to the other screen & look stuff up online, change songs in winamp, whatever, without having to alt-tab out of the game. you cannot do this when it's not in windowed mode, the mouse will simply stop at the edge of the WoW window.

before that, though, when i was just natively running a single instance of WoW, i still got good framerates about 99% of the time (other than Dalaran)....though there is one other area where my frames also suffered a little and that was when flying over the highly-wooded area of Dragonblight, such as around Agmar's Hammer. so i started methodically trying to figure out what was going on.

first, i disconnected my second monitor entirely, as i was not sure if it was causing too much strain on the video card or what....it made no difference.

so then i reconnected the second monitor and had a program called GPU-Z open on that screen (set to the "sensors" tab so i could watch the performance meter) while i was playing a single instance of WoW on the main screen (in maximized windowed mode). even when the frame rate was 30fps or lower, the GPU meter never went above ~50% - 55% utilization, so i knew without a doubt that it was not a GPU deficiency (as i suspected, being a Radeon HD 4870). i thought that maybe my CPU wasn't operating fast enough, so i overclocked my CPU from 3Ghz to 3.6Ghz (400Mhz x 9 multiplier), and there was no change in framerate or GPU utilization whatsoever. i even UNDERclocked it to 2.33Ghz (333Mhz x 7 multiplier) with no effect, so i knew it was not CPU-related.

so then i started going through the in-game settings...i disabled and/or set them all to their minimum values, then started enabling them or turning them up, one by one (restarting the game after each & every change) until the problem returned. what i found was that the view distance started to greatly affect the framerate if it was set anywhere above the 3rd notch from the lowest setting. however, i had never had any problem before with the single monitor setup, even when the view distance was set pretty high (3rd notch from the highest). and even with the view distance set to 100% before (with the single-monitor setup running 1 instance of WoW), it was still better than what i've been experiencing lately.

so i got to thinking, maybe it was because it was in windowed mode, instead of full-screen mode...so i set it to run in full-screen mode, and voila! no more FPS issue (with a single window).

after i figured that out, i set both WoW windows to run in full-screen mode instead of windowed mode (one instance of WoW on each monitor), and tried PwnBoxer again....still no dice! i was heartbroken. after spending ~1.5 hours troubleshooting all the settings i could, i was still having the same crappy framerates in my main window as i was before, regardless of whether i was limiting the framerate from within PwnBoxer or not, and regardless of whether or not vsync was enabled in-game. i can still enable vsync, then disable it again, which still fixes the framerate issue, but also still ends up breaking the key broadcasting in PwnBoxer (presumably because the entire WoW window has to reload to make the change take effect). so then i tried moving both WoW instances to the main monitor, set to full-screen mode in-game, and resized them via PwnBoxer to fit on the same monitor, then gave it a try again....and it is a little bit better, but still not where it needs to be (~40-ish fps, vs. 30 or less). with just a single instance of WoW in full-screen mode, i can get a rock-steady 60fps in Thunder Bluff, and pretty much anywhere else except Dalaran, and the occasional 3 - 8fps drop in that same area above Dragonblight with all the trees.

i would MUCH prefer to have my 28" 1920x1200 main monitor fully utilized by only my main WoW window...after all, that's what i bought that monitor for...but it's kinda looking like that may not be possible right now.

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Tim:

you said that PwnBoxer has built-in framerate limiting, and that to enable framerates above 30fps, i would need to check the box next to "Limit this game's FPS" and set the max framerate to 60 (which didn't work, even after trying all the above)....does this mean that even if that box is not checked, it is naturally limiting the framerate to 30fps, or some other unspecified number? or is it supposed to just let the game run at the maximum FPS that the computer/monitor combo is capable of if that box is not checked? and if the latter should be the case, is it possible that there is some bug somewhere that is limiting the FPS when it's not supposed to be?

one other thing i was thinking, is it possible that the issue occurs because my two monitors have different resolutions (1920x1200 & 1280x1024), instead of both monitors having the same resolution? unfortunately, i don't have access to two monitors of the same resolution to test this theory. i suppose i could just lower the resolution temporarily on my higher-rez monitor to test, but that will have to wait until tomorrow morning when i get off work.

thoughts/comments/suggestions?

[Iru]

so i got to thinking, maybe it was because it was in windowed mode, instead of full-screen mode...so i set it to run in full-screen mode, and voila! no more FPS issue (with a single window).

Running in windowed mode is ALWAYS going to produce lower frame-rates because the system can't simply ignore everything except the fore-ground program. You might have to try finding the set of video settings that produce "good enough" fps on the main window with a second copy open on the second monitor & just live with it. Yu should also make sure you have a solid colour background set on your monitor; it lowers the list of things the system thinks it needs to maintain on the active display

PS my poor laptop would kill to be able to produce 30 fps in dalaran. Of course I don't try to multi-box on it.

PPS some of us super old timer WoW players remember fighting Neferian in BWL at 4 fps. Of course we'd already had to walk uphill both ways through the snow to get there too, so......

[xunil76]

Originally Posted by Iru

Running in windowed mode is ALWAYS going to produce lower frame-rates because the system can't simply ignore everything except the fore-ground program. You might have to try finding the set of video settings that produce "good enough" fps on the main window with a second copy open on the second monitor & just live with it. Yu should also make sure you have a solid colour background set on your monitor; it lowers the list of things the system thinks it needs to maintain on the active display

PS my poor laptop would kill to be able to produce 30 fps in dalaran. Of course I don't try to multi-box on it.

PPS some of us super old timer WoW players remember fighting Neferian in BWL at 4 fps. Of course we'd already had to walk uphill both ways through the snow to get there too, so......

yeah, i had already closed out of any/all other programs that were not necessary for the computer to run and be protected from the bad stuff on the net (i.e., just mainly av/firewall software, ATI's catalyst control center, and normal windows processes). i hadn't thought to set a blank background, but all in all, i can't imagine that on this machine, it would be good for more than a few fps....but i'll give it a try in about an 30 mins. or so when i get home.

as for the laptop....hahaha...mine would kill just to be able to get 15fps....anywhere! gotta love those intel gma graphics chips!

and yeah, i'm an "old-school" WoW'er myself, been playing since less than a month after release....unfortunately, i never ended up going into BWL, as it turns out....i ended up taking a few breaks for several months at a time for various reasons.

but anyway, back to the topic at hand....

don't take this the wrong way or anything, i'm not trying to be mean....but i'm not new to computers and computer games....and i support computers at work for a living....i'm just new to the PwnBoxer program.

i do realize that running in windowed mode, it's going to use more resources than full-screen mode....that much is obvious from the way i have to reduce the view distance when windowed, vs. running it at almost max in full-screen mode.

i just really don't see how a game such as this could be that demanding on a computer as fast as mine is....i mean, i've got it OC'ed now to 3.6Ghz on the CPU (with plenty of headroom left to go for more, if i were inclined to take the time to do it and make it stable) and the video card running at 790/1100 (up from 770/1000), and i still can't get more than ~40-ish fps when first launching the game via PB? but yet, i can enable/disable vsync, and all of a sudden my frames jump to a solid 60fps? which is a good thing....but when i do that, key broadcasting breaks, which makes it pointless. and this is even when i haven't shut down all the other processes that normally start up when i boot windows. i compare my computer to a car that's got an engine in it that's capable of making 1000 horsepower on race fuel, but someone put 87 octane pump fuel in it.....it's definitely not running up to its full potential in any way, shape or form.

there's obviously something else going on here that i/we are missing, just need to figure out what that is. i don't really think that's too much to ask when i'm a paying customer of the program. and i rarely purchase software, i usually go the f/oss (free/open source software) route, so that should state how highly i think of PB in terms of its ease of use and its utility. there are other free programs out there that can pretty much accomplish the same thing, but i see the value in this program as being worth the cost, assuming i am able to get it working properly.

[xunil76]

btw, i just wanted to add that i'm grateful for all the replies....it's much better than some of the forums i visit where you post something and hear nothing but crickets chirping.....

i just think there's something else going on that we haven't caught yet.

[xunil76]

YES!!!!!!!!! a fix (sort of)....

i've gotta say, this has got to be one of the weirdest things i've ever seen in my life, and i can say with 100% certainty that it is either some kind of bug with PwnBoxer, or possibly the way PwnBoxer interacts with the ATI drivers/software....but i have a workaround that gets me the framerates i'm looking for on my main screen.

a bit of extra background before getting into the steps i took....i had initially set up PwnBoxer to use two separate WoW folders (exact copies of the original), rather than the same directory for both instances. so having said that, on to the steps i took:

1) like i said i would do earlier, i removed my wallpaper and set it to solid black....no change.
2) also like i said i'd do earlier, i changed my larger monitor's resolution from 1920x1200 to match that of the other screen (1280x1024)...no change.
3) i tried re-extracting PB from the downloaded .zip file and launching a fresh, new copy....no change.
4) i swapped which of the two copied directories each instance of WoW was launched from by PB....no change.
5) i set PB to launch both instances of WoW from the first duplicate WoW directory....no change.
6) i set PB to launch both instances of WoW from the second duplicate WoW directory....no change.
7) i set PB to launch both instances of WoW from the original WoW directory....no change.

so at this point, other than borrowing a pair of identical monitors from work (if they even allowed me to do that), the only thing left to do was to switch which monitor each instance of WoW ran on.....so i switched WoW instance 1 from screen 1 to screen 2, and switched WoW instance 2 from screen 2 to screen 1.......EUREKA!!!! SUCCESS!!!

using that method, now, whichever screen i take control of, they both get a solid 60fps in Thunder Bluff, while the non-active window rightfully reverts to a solid 30fps!!!!

so i simply swapped the login information in each instance of WoW to the opposite of what they were, and i can now play my main account in my main screen at a solid 60fps, and likewise for my RAF account in the secondary (when it's active). so essentially, instance 1 of WoW has to be on screen 2, and instance 2 of WoW has to be on screen 1....otherwise, screen 1's framerates go to hell in a handbasket.

like i said, one of the weirdest things i've seen in my years on this earth (computer-related, anyway).......

the only real problem (which isn't really a problem for me, since i don't use them anyway), is that the dockable clickmapper & the PwnBoxer panel now show up on my secondary screen, vs. the main screen. not sure if there's a way to change that, but honestly, i don't really care.....i'm just happy to have my correct framerates back again.

[Tim]

I'm reading your messages and I really think its something with how you have things set up that is causing the issue.

How about this, why don't I take a look at specifically how you are running PB + WoW? Ever heard of Teamviewer? Google it up, download it, and we can do a Teamviewer support session, basically you set up a secure session and I can view what is going on and take a peek.

Send me a PM and we can line it up.

[xunil76]

how about some screenshots for now? i can't login on the second account atm because the account holder (my gf) is playing one of her toons right now.

i did have to link to the images from an external site, though, as the forum resizes them to an ungodly-small (virtually unreadable) size when i try to attach them directly to the post....hope that's ok....but i figured you'd rather have access to the full resolution pics for ease of readability. if you know how to attach the full-size pics to the post and would prefer i do that, just let me know how.

PwnBoxer setup
video settings (here & here) for both instances of WoW (as launched by PwnBoxer)
sound settings for both instances of WoW (as launched by PwnBoxer).

in the PwnBoxer setup screenshot, i put the screen resolutions on each of the monitor boxes, but both instances of WoW are actually set in-game to 1920 x 1200, and it is scaling down the size to fit within the 1280 x 1024 monitor size on the second screen....i would set it to the actual size of the monitor, but i don't really want to have to take the time to re-size all my UI settings.....but that shouldn't cause the issue anyway, that's what PwnBoxer was designed to do (resize existing windows). besides, i did run it at 1280 x 1024 once before anyway (without resizing my UI, and it got all jumbled), and it didn't make any difference. btw, i didn't screenshot it and don't feel like going back and doing it now, but the dockable clickmapping option is completely disabled, but enabled/disabled doesn't make any difference.

i've tried every combination of the "Enable CPU Affinity" options available, and even tried disabling affinity entirely, but nothing changes. the same goes for limiting/not limiting the FPS. in-game, i have tried both enabling & disabling the "disable resize" option, and it also has no effect.

[jaycee]

1920x1280 res on the smaller monitor? make that 800x600 if you're not actively playing on it, or at least match it to 1280x1024 native.

[xunil76]

for two instances, it really makes no difference....and like i said, i don't want to take the time at the moment to have to re-do the scaling/arrangment of my UI. i'm just testing with my gf's account right now until i get the details worked out, then i'll be getting more accounts on my own....when that happens, then yeah, i'll completely re-do my UI to be as minimal as possible, and fit it within a smaller resolution.