After reading for long the benefits of having a large memory, I increased mine from 512MB to 1GB. My first step was to increase the graphics aperture from 128MB to 256MB. However I could not notice any significant improvement in image quality or frame rate.What is the best use I can give to my extra memory?I hope someone can help.Regards,

I've happily run COF with only 384megs of RAM (although 98SE is my gaming O/S, and as such there's a smaller memory footprint). Even with so little RAM, I run with 100-130 megs free.Where the extra memory helps is with add-ons, but even 512megs can be enough in a well-tuned system. Quite likely yours falls into that category..-John

You might be right. Until now I have only tested with the default scenery. I have two add-ons, Azores and Portugal, and mainly with this one the frame rate would drop significantly from 30+ to around 12 in some situations. I will next test with those add-ons.Regards,

I don't think you understand the principle of graphic aperture memory. The reserved space provided by the AGP in RAM is an overflow buffer only for use when conventional onboard GPU memory has been used. There can be NO effect from adding CPU RAM as there is no link between the AGP Aperture and RAM, only AGP Aperture and ONBOARD (GPU) RAM. Unless you have changed the RAM in your graphics card, there is no reason to change the AGP Aperture setting on your mobo.Your RAM increase may make scenery and textures load faster in FS, but that is all. Peak usage of FS in standard trim is about 230meg, XP can swallow 80-100 meg, so even 512 is enough, 768 is plenty and a gig is only needed if you do a lot of graphics (CAD/CAM) work or in certain specialised situations. IUf however, you run a lot of ancillary programs alongide FS then you shold see some benefits from the RAM increase, mainly hinging on less delay between page swapping (view changes, switching in and out of fullscreen mode and between other applications).Allcott

Thank you for your explanation. I am not really sure how the memory is used. However I remember to have read some time ago about the "texture memory" that can be used by the GPU in addition to its own RAM. I remember also reading that, with 128MB in the graphics board (which is my case) there is no great use to the extra memory on the mobo.But other fellow simmers have recommended a large graphics aperture size!In the configuration menu of my graphics board there is a drop down menu labeled: "Maximum system memory for PCI mode textures". The initial default was 63MB. With 512MB of RAM, I changed it to 128MB.Now, having increased my memory to 1GB, I changed it to 256MB. As I said in my initial post, I could not notice any improvement in a test with the default scenery (at Tacoma).In that menu of the Graphics board it is explained that this parameter "applies only to PCI graphics cards or AGP graphics cards running in PCI compatibility mode".How do I now whether my AGP board is running in "PCI compatibility mode"? Should it operate in this mode?Regards,

Assuming your board is AGP, and is operating correctly in AGP mode that setting for PCI mode textures is irrelevant. Set it to the lowest possible (2 meg) and forget it. As long as the very first page of the driver control panel shows the Bus as AGP 2x, 4x or 8x you're operating in AGP mode. You can also check this by running `dxdiag` from the start-run menu on the desktop.The only two settings that matter for AGP aperture size are 64 and 128 meg. Depending on your system configuration there may be a slight benefit to one or the other, but you need to change it to find out for yourself. Not less, not more, or you WILL eventually cause problems. Allcott

Thank you! I will follow your advise.Regards,