64MB or 256MB AGP aperture?

[Guest Stratus_Fractus]

I have both options in my BIOS. My card is 128MB, so what setting would give me the best performance?

[Guest]

128 gives my geforce4 much better performance. Try 64. When you take off look to the sides and see how the scenery slows a bit. Then set it to 128 and see how the scenery moves smoothly. Try it!Jose

[Guest Stratus_Fractus]

I'd love to set it to 128MB, but as I said my mobo doesn't have that option, only 64 and 256.

[Guest FPSFREAK]

When faced w the options that you state, set your agp aperature to 256. I am kind of curious though why you only have those 2 options. Are you currently running the latest bios for your particular motherboard?Bobby

[Guest]

Below is a response from W. Sieffert to a question of mine. The relevant article recomends either 64 or 128 MB, but no more._______________Visit www.rojakpot.com and select the definitive guide to BIOS, then select AGP aperture size selection.W. Sieffert

[Guest FPSFREAK]

Interesting article. Contrary to what the article states though, I have acheived my best benchmarks and FPS when having the AGP sized to at least 128. Performance only increases when set to 256. Try it both ways and see what you come up with.Bobby

[Guest Stratus_Fractus]

Thanks. I run an Intel motherboard, it is up to date I believe, but knowing Intel motherboards they don't give a lot of BIOS options.

[Guest]

FSFREAK:For some reason I'm still trying to figure out, whenever I choose settings over 16 MB, I get a windows unable to write to memory error. It may be Vcache settings. Anyone with any ideas please jump in.

[Cruachan 705]

Hi Greg,Do be honest I don't think it really matters. I know, I know many will declare performance hikes with different settings but with modern GPUs carrying 128MB of DDR ram it is doubtful whether any of your system memory will in fact be needed for texture manipulation.Anyway, I have done a lot of research on the subject and the general recommendation appears to be to opt for an AGP setting of 128MB. But, it will do no harm to try either 64 or 256. The setting does not lockout your physical memory for use only by your graphics card. It merely reserves a max value that can be used if needed, which it won't, I suspect, unless you are into running some particularly graphic intensive application. Complex as FS is, I doubt whether it falls into this category. Maybe someone knows different?Having said all that, I have noted an increase in HD activity when I am flying over the VFR Photographic Scenery for East & SE England. Whether this reflects the movement of high resolution textures to and from the 128MB of GPU onboard memory or whether this is an indication of system memory use I just don't know. What I have found is that HD activity drops quite significantly if I uncheck 'Extended Texures' from within the sim. This also cuts down on loading times before you can fly. The negative side to this, of course, is you get those bland textures without detail in the distance. You can always reduce your visibility settings to 5-15 miles to counteract this.Mike

[Cruachan 705]

My guess is that if this has always been the case then you may need to update your motherboard drivers. Check the manufacture's website and see if any are available.Mike

[Guest Stratus_Fractus]

Thanks Mike.

[Guest]

In case anyone is interested, I finally solved the problenm set out above.I updated MB drivers and bios but no joy. I increased VCache Max Setting to 2000 MBs, but I don't think that had anything to do with the solution.I finally downloaded the latest version of Intel's Application Accelerator, and now I can select AGP Aperature sizes upto 256 with no Windows memory errors. To be honest, I really didn't notice an FPS difference between 16, 128 and 256 MBs. Nevertheless, I know have it set at 128.Thanks everybody for the advice.

[crvm 0]

THe whole reason to increase this bios setting is to use the memory through the much faster AGP bus straight off your card. If you don't have a 256 meg card setting it to that won't change anything. Best Wishes, Randy J. Smith [h3]" A little learning is a dangerous thing"[/h3]AMD XP 2100 |MUNCHKIN 512 DDR RAM |ECS[/b ][i] K7S5A MB[/i] |GF3 64 MEG |WIN XP PRO |MITSUBISHI DIAMOND PLUS 91 19"

[wsieffert 0]

I'm glad you finally got it sorted. When I mean drivers, I mean drivers and the Intel Application Accelerator is a driver for your disk drives.:-lolI don't have Intel chips on my main computer at the moment and I usually don't differentiate when I talk about drivers.In any case, you got it sorted!!

[Guest]

Thanks. It was a good excersize to ugrade all the MB stuff. Only side effect now is that after booting up, selecting some programs (like FS 2002, Sandra) will result the computer not doing anything for approx. 30 seconds) and then firing up the program. Once the program is running, there are no problems. I updated MB drivers by just running the exec. Was there a specifc or recommended procedure to follow?