I just lowered my aperture from 256 to 128 and I was wondering if I made the correct decision.I have a Sapphire 9800 256 PRO and read that you should be between 64-128 for optimal performance.I am also noticing jagged coastlines around lakes and such.I have AF at 8 and AA at 4 is this correct?Thanks

Check and see what the maximum video ram equals: 256mb local on the video card, and ?? main memory via the AGP bus. With my Radeon 9700 Pro, I can only get 128mb of main memory, so if I set my aperture to 256 there is no benefit: there is a ceiling at 128mb of addressed main memory. I use PowerStrip to assess the amount of shared main memory.You may want to play around with ZERO shared main memory, by disabling AGP Texture Acceleration in dxdiag.exe. Maybe with 256mb of onboard video ram you won't need AGP memory--which is slower than video ram I do still believe.Noel

Hello,I saw a nice little increase in the quality of my performance when I turned my AGP Aperture size up to 256 from the setting I had it at, which was 128. It did not increase my FPS much, if any. But what it did do is give me a smoother experience in the sim, and less loading time of textures when going into the VC or spot view(switching views). Many other people that have 1 GB or more of System(Main) RAM, that I suggested they turn up their AGP Aperture size to 256 to, say they got better performance also. I have a 128 MB Radeon 9700 Pro. I'm not sure what the difference would be for someone that has a 256 MB video card.Noel,Perhaps you should explain exactly what the APG Aperture Size setting does. My understanding is that is that it allocates some of your System RAM for video texture storage according to the size you set it. To me, this means some of your system ram is used, instead of having to go to your hard drive for the textures. Now, having the textures in your system ram and ready to be given to your video card from there, rather than from the hard drive, is a lot faster I would think. Now, if you have enough system ram to allocate more of it to texture storage, who wouldn't benefit from such a thing?Noel, at one time I believe you asked me for some specific benchmarks concerning the benefit of having 1 GB of System RAM for FS2004 over having less than 1 GB. I don't really have what you want I don't think. But, I recently looked at what my RAM usage was when I loaded up a POSKY 757 with VC , 32-bit texture paint job, and all my other FS goodies going, which I have quite a few. And of course, my AGP Aperture Size is set to 256. Well, it showed my RAM as pretty much being FULLY used. 97% Used + 2.4% Cached.If you want a full and complete explanation of what the AGP Aperture Size setting does than I recommend reading about it at www.rojackpot.com in their BOG, BIOS Optimization Giude. And here's an excerpt from it..."The AGP aperture size should be calculated using this formula : maximum usable AGP memory size x 2 plus 12MB. The actual usable AGP memory space is less than half the AGP aperture size set in the BIOS. This is because the AGP controller needs a write combined memory area equal in size to the actual AGP memory area (uncached) plus an additional 12MB for virtual addressing. Therefore, it isn't simply a matter of determining how much AGP memory space you need. You also need to calculate the final aperture size by doubling the amount of AGP memory space desired and adding 12MB to the total.It is quite common to hear many people recommending that the AGP aperture size should be exactly half the amount of system RAM. However, this is wrong for the same reason why swapfile size shouldn't always be 1/4 of system RAM. Like the swapfile, the requirement for AGP memory space shrinks as the graphics card's local memory increases in size. This is because the graphics card will have more local memory to dedicate to texture storage. This reduces the need for AGP memory. So, if you upgrade to a graphics card with more memory, you shouldn't be "deceived" into thinking that it will therefore require even more AGP memory! On the contrary, a smaller AGP memory space will be required."So, I think if you have a Video Card that doesn't have a ton of memory on it, but you have lots of System RAM, turn that AGP Aperture size up! And if you have a video card that does have a ton of memory on it, then perhaps you are correct Noel, no System RAM need be set aside for AGP memory. I really just want to be clear that I thought I really wouldn't see much difference by turning up my AGP Aperture Size from 128 to 256. But FS2004 is not your average game and I was wrong. This is where I think that having 1 GB of System RAM comes into play by allowing you turn up your AGP Aperture size and therefore have more AGP memory. As you probably know, WinXP likes to have about 512 MB's already as optimal. Throw texture hungry FS2004 on top of that and you're talking serious memory usage.Regards,Jim

In a nutshell I should set it at 256 eventhough I have A lot of vid mem and 1 Gig XMS DDR.I looked lastnight and with FS9 going using PMDG737,UT@80%,Sliders MAXED,MSFS weather using 3rd party cumulus and at a SIMFLYRS KLAX my mem usage was about 384 and cpu % was 51 and PF was low.This was with aperture at 128 but after reading your detailed explanation I will boost her back to 256.I also OC my cpu lastnight to 10% on auto using ASUS BIOS.Thanks

You might want to read this. http://www.rojakpot.com/default.aspx?locat...&var1=0&var2=32I had my AGP set to 256 and backed it down to 128 and got the same IQ but smoother & higher fps. I even tried 64 and was the same a 128.I might suggest that you not use the "auto" oc mode. I tried it first and it buggged a bunch of settings up in my bios. Set your memory timings like this:DRAM Clock: 200 MHz SDRAM CAS Latency: 2TSDRAM RAS to CAS Delay (tRCD): 3TSDRAM Row Precharge (tRP): 2TSDRAM Active to Precharge Delay (tRAS): 6TSDRAM Bank Interleave: 4 BankDisable onboard sound and USB Legacy Support.You may know this already but a suggestion.Jay:-wave

>>You might want to read this.>http://www.rojakpot.com/default.aspx?locat...&var1=0&var2=32>>I had my AGP set to 256 and backed it down to 128 and got the>same IQ but smoother & higher fps. I even tried 64 and was the>same a 128.>>I might suggest that you not use the "auto" oc mode. I tried>it first and it buggged a bunch of settings up in my bios. >>Set your memory timings like this:>DRAM Clock: 200 MHz >SDRAM CAS Latency: 2T>SDRAM RAS to CAS Delay (tRCD): 3T>SDRAM Row Precharge (tRP): 2T>SDRAM Active to Precharge Delay (tRAS): 6T>SDRAM Bank Interleave: 4 Bank>>Disable onboard sound and USB Legacy Support.>>You may know this already but a suggestion.>>Jay>:-waveJay what settings got bugged? I have not noticed any system degradation since the OC,but maybe you can enlighten me on how to implement the settings u suggested.I would assume I go into manual and use the settings you recited above, or should I just go back to my default settings.I am not too sure I saw an increase in performance but maybe I need to get a bench tool to see.I dont have onboard sound and I think it is disabled but I will check.The USB Legacy Support is that needed fro USB drivers??Thanks in advance

The AGP Aperture controls how much of the system RAM can be used for storing textures. It doesn't allocate the RAM, it's only used if it's needed. It was invented a long time ago when videocards had very little memory. Instead of putting more expensive memory on the videocard, they developed AGP texturing to allow the videocard to quickly retrieve textures from the main RAM. It didn't get very popular, and video card companies opted for more local video memory instead. The video memory is MUCH faster than the system RAM for loading textures. Current high-end videocards do over 20GB/s while standard system DDR RAM is limited to 2-3.2GB/second. Once your videocard has to resort to swapping textures over the AGP bus, your application has already gone into slideshow-mode. Very evident in X-Plane which uses uncompressed 24-bit textures with no mipmaps.Nowadays, AGP Texturing is rarely used. Even 64MB videocards have enough VRAM to store all FS2004 textures needed inside the local VRAM unless you go crazy with the mipmap LOD-bias. You can basically disable AGP Texturing with virtually no reduction of performance. Because AGP texturing is almost never used, there's no "right" setting really. There's no damage done by setting it very high because the RAM is only used when the videocard runs out of local memory which almost never happens. Setting it to 256MB can cause problems with certain chipsets, though. Setting it to 32MB usually disables AGP texturing (no point in having an extra 32MB of slow memory when you have 128-256MB super-fast 20+GB/s local VRAM onboard the card).

Seems to be a recurring question. Quick search in the forum:http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...ing_type=searchhttp://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...ing_type=searchhttp://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...ing_type=searchhttp://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...ing_type=searchhttp://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...ing_type=searchhttp://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...ing_type=searchhttp://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...ing_type=searchhttp://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...ing_type=searchhttp://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...ing_type=searchTHANK YOU, THANK YOU AVSIM for this WONDERFUL search feature in the forums!Hope this helps!

I found that after trying auto mode that some of my manual settings were changed. I also got a mail from ASUS tech., after 33 days, stating that it is not that accurate either.Set your bios to default and restart. The numbers above are for your mem. timing. Go to the advanced tab then down to dram timing and disable and then you should see it all drop down so you can set the timings manually. I am assuming our bios is very simular. USB Legacy support is not needed.PM me here if you want and we can get it together. Jay:-wave

Very well said Jimmy, and the bit about certain chipsets probably explains why some see benefits from high apatures and some don't.