Get the most out of ur 128MB vid card

[Guest gasebah]

I know I will get flamed for this but I couldn't care less.If you have a 128MB vid card set ur aperture size to 16MB. Yes, you heard me one six EMM Bee. The overall performance is much smoother and offers higher fps than any other setting with my computer.My unprofessional explanaion for this is that by setting the aperture size that low you are forcing the vid card to use its own, mauch faster memeory more effective.Just try it, you have nothing to loose and can always go back.Especially forget the old saying to set the aperture size to half of your memory. That was with 16MB vid cards. But do not set it any lower than 16 or you will disable your AGP.Alex

[nudata 10]

I tried the 16mb AGP setting on a Gmax 400 64mb card with 1ghz cpu and 512mb ram. My apparent frame rate went up by about 10. Side view stutter reduced. So it worked for me. Theory????Dick

[Guest gasebah]

Hmmm. Maybe even the same theory. 64MB is a lot. Remember that only a few years ago that was our standard RAM for a PC. Also I guess 16 MB might not be fr any system. It also depends I guess on your overall settings, stuff running in the background..... I guess some might have the sweet spot at 32 other maybe even at 64. But I am sure of one thing "the higher the better " does not apply here. I am neither a techie nor a computer wiz. I was just playing around this morning.Alex

[Guest gasebah]

Actually I believe that I found out the following:When u get to the sweetspot it is a compromise between either higher frame rates and longer stutters or lower framerates and shorter stutters. When I am talking about stutters I do not mean that the picture is really jumping. These are very tiny little stops I am talking about. I do not think you can even see them if you do not have a 19" monitor.There seems to be a real difference between framerates and stutters. I am sure they are caused by different reasons.But if you really get into it chances are you get crazy. Because 16MB might be good in one surrounding (scenery) while 32MB seem to be better in another.Alex

[Guest cornclose]

I have always said this for some time (years), but not many people listen...See the bottom line of my signature :-Chris Ehttp://website.lineone.net/~flightsimukAvoid AGP texturing = Better Performance ;)

[Guest gasebah]

:-)

[Guest PhilC]

While we're on this subject....My bios only allows selecting a 64 or 256Mb aperture. When I select 256 my frames go up a couple. I have a 32Mb ATI Radeon card. What exactly does selecting 256 do? Am I better off with 64 although the fps are a little lower?

[Guest gasebah]

Hi Phil,as I said I am not a computer wiz and my knowledge is very very limited. From what I understand the AGP Aperture Size reserves and adresses part of your system memory for your vid card. Basically it should be o.k. to set it high in order to allow your video card which is very stressed out in games like FS2002 to make use of the system memory.A thumb rule in the old days was that it makes sense to set the Aperture Size to half of your memory. However I have, and that is proven, much better results on my rig with low settings. The reason for this might be my theory (see above) or any other reason (what the hack do I know%2

[tgibson 11]

And how do you turn off AGP texturing?Thanks,-- Tom GibsonCalifornia Classic Propliners: http://www.calclassic.com/Cal Classic Alco Page: http://www.calclassic.com/alco/Freeflight Design Shop: http://www.freeflightdesign.com/ San Diego Model RR Museum: http://www.sdmodelrailroadm.com/Drop by! ___x_x_(")_x_x___

[John_Cillis 2,406]

"And how do you turn off AGP texturing?"There are two ways--one is to lower the AGP app to 16 megs or less in the BIOS. The other way is via DirectX--you can turn off AGP texturing there as well.I'm surprised I don't see this tip more... In addition to some speed improvement (very minor in most cases), stability is improved. I've also done some study of the texture load while 2k2 is running, and with a normal setup (untweaked FS2002.cfg), the scenery takes around 30-40 megs of texture slots. Add to that the texture load taken by AI, Autogen, etc, and it comes out to "around" 64 megs....There is not a 1-1 relationship between texture size on the HD and the texture RAM used by FS, as FS uses mipmaps to reduce the texture load, especially as distant scenery is drawn....Having said all that, I leave my MB set at 64 megs.... Never had any problems, but I would consider this tip if instability ever surfaced...-John

[Guest PhilC]

Just wanted to add that I used DXDiag to disable AGP Texturing and what a difference it made on my ATI Radeon DDR 32!!!At Emma Field my average framerates jumped from 6 or 7 to 10 or 12. Smooth on the ground and in flight. Since FS2002 is about all the gaming I do, I'm not concerned about disabling it.Thanks guys... this is just about the best tip that I ever received.PS - I can't promise that this will work for everyone.

[Francois_Dumas 10]

just trying to find missing messages ;-)________________________Francois A. "Navman" DumasAssociate Editor &Forums AdministratorAVSIM Online!email: fdumas@avsim.com________________________

[Guest cornclose]

I was wondering about that...Chris Ehttp://website.lineone.net/~flightsimukAvoid AGP texturing = Better Performance ;)

[Francois_Dumas 10]

yeah.... haven't found them yet though :-(Clear case of AWOL if you ask me :-lol :-outta Francois :-wave

[Guest]

I could not understand why turning off AGP worked either (always thought AGP should help not hinder)and so I posted a ? in a XP Pro newsgroup and received the following answer - one I could understand - to the reason switching off AGP texture acceleration in the display area of dxdiag helps FSim smoothness in some instances:-> "The AGP feature was originally intended to improve speed, not visual quality. See, each card has a dedicated texture memory or "buffer".Obviously, the bigger the memory, the better, but memory costs money and board space. So 6 years ago, some engineer at Intel thought "hmm......what if we could transfer textures from system memory (where you have an abundance of memory) to the video card fast enough to keep up with game play? Then, texture memory on the vid card could be eliminated". hence the high speed bus known as AGP was born. As far as Flight Sim 2002 goes, it is quite possible that AGP texturing can't keep up, so you get better fps by texturing directly from on-board texture memory, and using the AGP only to cache the textures."On my system it makes no difference (AMD2100XP,512MB PC2700, GeForce3TI200 128MB)if I turn it off but reducing the Graphics aperture size in the BIOS from 128mb to 32mb did iron out the slight stutter I used to have in FS2K2. (FW and SBA disabled)Shep.