Graphics Aperture Size?

[lillo]

I see in the Forum that bad performance in 32 MB Texture Rendering Speed indicates that Graphics Aperture Size is set too low...but what is the way to change this paramer?
Tanks to all

lillo

PII 400, Millenium G200.

[SteveC]

Yes, in your sysem BIOS there will be a setting somewhere labelled as Aperture Size or something similar. Most probably it'll be set to 64 or even 32mb - change it to at least the same as, if not double your system RAM.

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Cheers,
Steve
It's Only A Graphics Card!
(But a damn good 'un!)

[lillo]

thanks Steve,
....but it seems that nothing appears in my system bios like Graphic Aperture Size. Is it possible?

M.B.: Gigabyte GA-6BXC/Bios: Award 4.51 PG

[SteveC]

multi post syndrome again...

[This message has been edited by SteveC (edited 07-07-99).]

[SteveC]

I'd be surprised - even the PCChips with built on graphics have the option. I don't have a gigabyte board so I cannot confirm this - anyone else?

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Cheers,
Steve
It's Only A Graphics Card!
(But a damn good 'un!)

[Scytale]

Yup. AGP aperture, graphics aperture.... all the same.

[Gurm]

Although you've all given the guy some baaaaaad advice. The AGP aperture size is the amount of system RAM you want the video card to use when doing AGP transfers. If you set it to more than your system RAM the motherboard and/or windows could decide to:

1. limit it to system ram
2. turn it off
3. wig out

And you don't want to set it to the SAME as your system ram, since that will leave nothing left over for games and the OS.

Set it to half or three quarters of your system RAM. No more. I have mine at 128MB on a 256MB machine, it runs just fine.

- Gurm

[Scytale]

Gurm, your groove for theory would make sense in a perfect world (or in a world where the AGP aperture would specify a static sized area ).

Real life shows that results vary depending on hardware, configuration and application. Did you read this one: http://forums.gagames.com/forums/For...ML/001964.html ?

[billko]

I would almost agree with Gurm, except that his "rule of thumb" - one-half to three-quarters of the system RAM - should probably be a starting point for experimentation, not a cold, hard fact. It's kinda like in car mechanics where you start with the factory recommended timing and then dial it in to what your car likes the best.

Experiment, and enjoy!

Bill

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People call me a computer god; I remind them that I am merely a minor deity...

[Gurm]

No, the BIOS setting just sets an upper limit of how much the OS and drivers are allowed to ask for... not the static amount they get.

Setting the value too low will, as indicated in that thread, cause AGP texturing to stop working (can also cause a whole slew of other bugs). Setting it too high USUALLY doesn't hurt (the motherboard just compensates and fixes it to no more than your system RAM) but it CAN, since it's not specified.

Now, an interesting side note is that the people that make EverQuest decided that since their code was so buggy they would advice people to turn the aperture down to like 4MB, effectively disabling AGP... slackers!

- Gurm

[billko]

I would almost agree with Gurm, except that his "rule of thumb" - one-half to three-quarters of the system RAM - should probably be a starting point for experimentation, not a cold, hard fact. It's kinda like in car mechanics where you start with the factory recommended timing and then dial it in to what your car likes the best.

Experiment, and enjoy!

Bill

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People call me a computer god; I remind them that I am merely a minor deity...

[SteveC]

I've noticed that you need to turn the apeture size up to 256meg on my 128mb system to stop windows thrashing my hard drive if I run the tirtanium benchmark with BIG textures. Don't know why!

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Cheers,
Steve
It's Only A Graphics Card!
(But a damn good 'un!)

[LAMFDTK]

There are TWO games that make use of on board system ram thru AGP. Can you name them? This "setting aperture size" is for benchmarking right? 3Dmark right? There are only two games that even use AGP out there now, I bet you cant name them....

[Markus Selchow]

Unreal would be game #1 ...

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Cheers,
Maggi

Asus P2B-S @ 112MHz FSB * Celeron300A @ 504MHz
Heavily boosted by the Millenium G400 32MB SGRAM DualHead

[NotJim]

Well tonic trouble says it NEEDs agp.

I have 64Mb system ram and an 8Mb mystique.
Aperture size is set to 64Mb and Incoming, ons an options screen somewhere, says my graphics card has like 28Mb memory. So theres a game that doesnt need agp but uses it. sort of.

so if i set my agp aperture size to 1/3 i would have lost a bit of extra memory.

NotJim
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i feel kinda weak with my 64Mb memory i think ill upgrade.