Thank you all, especially Bobby. Cogent advice much appreciated.http://southwest.corpmerchandise.com/image...l/200015138.gifAlex ChristoffN562ZBaltimore, MD

Morning Bobby,Thank you for the education. I have been looking for this discription/explanation for months. Thanks again. Setting my FX5900 256 at 64.Bob I....in sunny Florida

Bobby,That seems to be an exact ripp from Adrian Wongs work on his Bios optimization guild and you should have at least given him the credit.http://www.rojakpot.com/default.aspx?location=4&var1=23Anyhow that is all great theory (Adrian actualy does test but...), trouble is the actual results you get will depend on what actual Video card/Motherboard you are Testing as well as game.There are many games that will never stress the 256mb or even the 128mb frame buffer of most modern video cards, however FS is not one of those games...Start loading a bunch of 3rd party add-ons into FS and if at the same time you like to use AA your video cards frame buffer can easily get tapped out and you will soon be flexing that AGP aperture setting.That being said, not all video cards as well as video card/motherboard and chipset combos perform equally using various AGP aperture settings, I have done extensive testing on various combos and recommend you simply benchmark for best results as most ATI cards have a tight control on how much the AGP aperture will be used and usually a lower aperture size is preferred but again testing for FPS performance vs. stutter is best.On the other hand with Nvidias implementation of AGP aperture use real performance results can actually benefit from a wide open AGP aperture setting, I have three AMD machines here all running with GF4TI cards and two of them get 3-5% better FPS results in D3D (without stutter) with a 256mb aperture setting while one of the machines (KT266) under performs unless the aperture is lowered to 128mb, dropping all of them below 128mb results in very poor benchmark scores in FS as well as UT and 3dmark2001SE.These same results apply to all Intel chipsets as well, they vary so testing is best and good results with one combo do not guarantee the same results for others, apparently there is a reason why some of the newest motherboards allow an Aperture size of up to 512mb but with PCIexpress coming soon this all will change.

Oh, and being a jackass to a senior>member when you have all of 4 posts generally isn't a good>idea. I've been posting here since 1998 and most people know>I'm a jackass sometimes so it's ok ;)>>-Max Cowgillmay i correct you there?it generally isn't a good idea to be a jackass.and it doesn't matter if you have logged 4 posts or 4000.ofcourse,this is just my opinion ;-),which may leave YOU with the impression I'M a jackass.i'm not.regards

>>Oh, and being a jackass to a senior>>member when you have all of 4 posts generally isn't a good>>idea. I've been posting here since 1998 and most people know>>I'm a jackass sometimes so it's ok ;)>>>>-Max Cowgill>>may i correct you there?>it generally isn't a good idea to be a jackass.>and it doesn't matter if you have logged 4 posts or 4000.>ofcourse,this is just my opinion ;-),which may leave YOU with>the impression I'M a jackass.>i'm not.>>regardsI appreciate the advice Tom, but you'll notice I did say "sometimes" and not "always." I think everyone's entitled to be a jackass sometimes, don't you? There are varying degrees of jackass, and I think I've demonstrated them all over the last few years here, so I'm quite familiar with the finer points of jackassedness ;)Anyway, I'm not trying to start an argument over such a silly topic, just thought I'd bring some levity to the situation.Oh, and to keep on topic, I agree with Paul in his above post. Larger AGP apertures are absolutely necessary in FS200x especially when add-ons are installed. I use Airport 2002 in FS2002, as well as several add-on aircraft and I know my GFFX 5200 (or previous GF4 Ti 4200) would bog down without a large AGP aperture.-Max Cowgill

Paul,You are correct. That is where it is from. I thought I had mentioned it in the post but now realize I left it out. (I was at work and may have gotten sidetracked for a minute) My apologies to Adrian and to those who think it may have been my words solely.I have found that 128 seems to work best with my current setup. Than again everything you read says to turn fast writes off it causes nothing but problems yet I seem to have none with it enabled.Bottom line, If your that concerned about it. Benchmark till you find the best perf. numbers.Again my apologies.Bobby

> Well Max, don't laugh too loudly or you may fall off your>dictionary :-). Those of us who ain't never used no double>negatives are, indeed, few. But you ain

>>I appreciate the advice Tom, but you'll notice I did say>"sometimes" and not "always." I think everyone's entitled to>be a jackass sometimes, don't you?yes sir,you are SOOOO right ;-) There are varying degrees>of jackass, and I think I've demonstrated them all over the>last few years here, so I'm quite familiar with the finer>points of jackassedness ;)sorry...can't say i've witnessed ;-),but i believe you immediately.>Anyway, I'm not trying to start an argument over such a silly>topic, that would make us both jackasses,so i agree immediately ;-)just thought I'd bring some levity to the situation.you did,i did not mean to flame you,but i guess i failed to amuse you....i'm such a jackass ;-)

LOL, nice post Tom. Cheers mate :-beerchug -Max Cowgill

oh i had WAY to many of those when i posted....it's reflected in the post i think(hope?)cheers mate,here's to another 5 years of occasional jackassing?....or something like that.:-beerchug :-beerchugedit:forgot the beer .... i'm a genuine jackass...i know ;-)

Well reading all this inevitably led to me fiddling yet again. Surprisingly after increasing the aperture from its default of 64 to 256MB really increased my performance quite dramatically (easily 10%) whereas 128MB didn't seem to do anything.Cheers,Paulhttp://www.strontiumdog.plus.com/sbird.jpgOfficially licenced by British Airways plc for use of name and logo[p]AMD XP2800+ Barton, Gigabyte GA-7NNXP nForce2, 1Gig Crucial PC3200 DDR 400MHz, Gainward 128 MB GF4-4200, SB Audigy, 3 x WD Caviar SE[/p]

Hi Paul,I did the same thing recently. Partly because I had seen a post a while back of an ATI owner saying that he got best performance from setting it at 256. I hadn't forgotten about trying it. I had just gotten tired of tweaking for a little while there. ;) Then when I saw this thread I decided since I have plenty of RAM I'd go ahead and it give it a try. Since I have a 128 MB Video card I wasn't expecting it to do anything, but I'll be danged, I got the same results as you describe. :)Jim

Good news Jim! Didn't try 512 though - thought that would be pushing my luck a bit! :-)Cheers,Paulhttp://www.strontiumdog.plus.com/sbird.jpgOfficially licenced by British Airways plc for use of name and logo[p]AMD XP2800+ Barton, Gigabyte GA-7NNXP nForce2, 1Gig Crucial PC3200 DDR 400MHz, Gainward 128 MB GF4-4200, SB Audigy, 3 x WD Caviar SE[/p]

You're right one!I also reduced my aperature to 64 (with a 128 card) and it improved performance.gwillmot

The general rule is AGP Aperture should be set at 1/2 of total system ram. (not video ram) Though as mentioned above, playing with it a bit can help you find the optimum for your system. I have 1Gb of memory, so mine is set at 512Mb....works fine. My last MB had a max setting of 256Mb which I used for 2 years as I had 768Mb of DDR on it.