Help w/ Lag in only 1 window

So, I was testing ISBoxer today and I found something rather odd. I followed a video guide (I think one from MaRai) to setup ISBoxer with 5 windows.

For some odd reason, the window that I select as the "main" lags and only that window. There is no lag in the secondary windows. If I select one of the no-lag secondary windows and it switches to the "main" there is no framerate stuttering in that window, but when I switch back to the "main" there is a ton of stuttering.

If my description is dumb, here is a brief layout -

Character 1 - Main Window - Laggy
Character 2 - Secondary
Character 3 - Secondary
Character 4 - Secondary
Character 5 - Secondary

Swith to Character 2

Character 2 - Main Window (No lag)
Character 1 - Secondary - Laggy
Character 3 - Secondary
Character 4 - Secondary
Character 5 - Secondary

It's super odd that this is only happening in 1 window.

I am running a Intel Core i7-2600k, 8 GB of Memory, and a Sapphire R9 390

My "Character 1" was going to be my boosting character and I find when I close the window and let it just be 4 instances in ISBoxer, and then re-open that window so it's on its own, I get no lag, even when I pump the settings up. So I don't think this is a HW issue.

[bob]

How do you know it's not a hardware issue? Have you monitored it, and made sure it's not a lack of RAM, VRAM, CPU or GPU?
It could possible be a software hiccup. The most likely choice will be either, your in game settings. ISBoxer should have created virtual files, so each character can have their own graphic settings, which will be different again to the settings file when you run the game without ISBoxer. These initially will be the same as your settings when not running ISBoxer, so probably higher than your hardware will allow when running 5 copies.
It might also be something else like antivirus, some other overlay (Mumble, Raptr, etc), which doesn't play nice.

Your best bet is to start on this page HOWTO: Tweak your framerate.

If that doesn't help, post a diagnostic for crashes (yes I know you're not crashing), but select the game process which is lagging.

Alright, here is the Pastebin: http://pastebin.com/yJ8yF4Jp

Some additional information. It is only the 1 window. No other windows are affected by the lag, even when I switch to those windows and make it the new primary.

It's always the first window opened as well that is having this issue. It doesn't matter which account or character I set as first, the first one that opens is the problem.

Also, I pulled up my hardware information and sitting at the login screens on all 5 windows, I was getting heavy lag in that window. My CPU was only at about 7% capacity and my memory was at about 65%

Here is a video showing the lag: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOSM85HMrz0

I also pop open my ingame settings and set them to max then back down to lowest just incase there was some issue going on where settings weren't actually set to low.

More Details....

I just tried launching Six windows instead of 5. The sixth (first) window was the only one that was lagging. I closed that 1 window and all of the other 5 windows worked without any issues or lag. I get a solid 60 FPS in my main and a solid 30 in the other windows.

Each process uses about 7.5% of my total memory and about 1% of my CPU while at the login screen, these stats don't differ for the first, laggy window.

These are my settings when I use the quick setup wizard...

Round-robin balancing (HyperThreading) (Dedicate CPU 1) (FPS 60/30) (slots per core 1/1/2/2/1/1/1/1) (cores per slot 2/2/2/2/2)


Also, some more info....

I cannot change the CPU stuff. I tried changing it so it doesn't dedicate CPU1 but it always defaults back to that. I tried creating a completely new profile and changing the CPU options from the start and it still defaults to the above CPU options.

Another thing about the lag as well, it only occurs in that 1 window when I actually send input to that window, such as moving the mouse. I get a sharp drop in FPS.

Well, I guess it was a corrupt install or something.

Edit: Spoke too soon. Problem is back.

I'm guessing it has to do with the CPU core setups but I cannot seem to change those settings.

[MiRai]

Dude... you're running SSAA 4x which means you're rendering the game at 4x the resolution shown in the settings (i.e. at a 4K resolution). There is no way that a single 390 is going to be able to handle that on multiple clients, and neither will 8GB of RAM. That level of anti-aliasing is 99% likely the cause of the issue, so please turn that off on all of your game clients and see what happens.

This would have probably been noticed much earlier had you checked bob's link on how to tweak your framerate, which gives instructions on how to monitor your hardware (as well as share the information with others).

Just disabled that on all clients, rebooted clients just to make sure it would take effect. Didn't solve the issue.

I think my issue has to do with the way the CPU cores are being assigned but I can't seem to change those settings and every time I try, it resets back to the default one I posted earlier.

This isn't a simple performance issues. The plan is to launch a single team in ISBoxer, so 5 clients and the first one that launches (The primary) lags like crazy upon any user input. If I launch six clients and close out the first one and use the remaining 5 clients, I have no performance issues.

While that is a workaround to the issue at this time, I do want to find a more permanent solution because of the way all the windows lineup with 6 clients looks bad.


Edit: Here is a second pace with all the WoW clients running and I selected the crash diagnostic for the instance that is lagging: http://pastebin.com/MeCTdrQ7

Going to keep my fingers crossed but I just completely uninstalled my Radeon drivers and then reinstalled them and made sure not to install Raptr AMD App and it appears that for now, the issue is gone.

[bob]

If you get back to it, use the CPU strategy wizard to select the last option in the dropdown, which is "Select All cores for all games".

Please note that if you go back into it, the CPU Strategy Wizard DOES NOT SHOW YOU THE CURRENT SETTING. If you want to see what is currently set, then you need to go to your Character Set, and then select Each slot (the number), and check out the performance tab. It will show you the setting for that slot.

Round robin, while useful in certain circumstances, is IMO not the best strategy, because it limits the cores that a game instance can run on, which kind of defeats the purpose of having a multi-core processor where any thread can run on any core. It is useful (these days) for a limited number of scenarios. For most people, you want all cores available and just to let Windows manage which thread is running where.

Also, Raptr has been known to cause performance issues, so unless you really need it, remove this (edit: although I see you have done so on your latest driver remove/reinstall).