AGP apature question

[switch495]

I was poking around in my bios and found an option to change the AGP apature... what does that mean, and what will it do for me?

I'm not using onboard video, i've got an AGP 9600se 128mb video card goin on.
The apature was set to 64 mb... do i want that increased to 128 or 256?



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[Chefkoch]

I think what it does is decide how much Ram your GPU uses of the System Memory.. I once read somewhere you should set it to twice what your GPU has for Ram, but I am not 100% sure.

Hope this Helped
Regards
ChefKoch

 

[4Ryan6]

<A HREF="http://www.cybercpu.net/howto/basic/AGP_aperture_2/" target="_new"> This will help you understand </A> however your settings will be in relation to your total system memory, his benchmarks were done with a total sys mem of 512mb with interesting results of different aperture changes, I'm running a graphics card with 128mb onboard mem also, and presently running 1024 total sys mem with my AGP aperture set at 256mb.


<A HREF="http://www.tweak3d.net/articles/aperture-size/" target="_new"> Heres some other tests </A>


Hope this helps you out.











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[switch495]

Thanks for the info.. i read them both... it seems no one knows how to optimize agp ap size... ha, its a mystery.

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12Mhz of pure <b>power</b></font color=orange>

 

[Crashman]

The most I've seen a program require was 128MB. Various settings usually have little performance difference, so I always set it at 128MB.

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[4Ryan6]

Since all the tests were run with the systems total RAM at 512mb and I'm running 1024mb of RAM I decided to run my own 3D Mark 2003 test at different aperture settings.

Aperture/Score
128/5845
256/5854
512/5838


As you can see benching with 3D Mark 2003 the 256 aperture setting gives better results when your total system RAM is greater than 512mb, I'm not trying to prove anyone wrong here, just allow for the fact that total system RAM does makes a difference in the total score at different aperture settings.


I'm glad you brought this question up I'd pondered over it a few times myself but never tested to see what the differences may actually be, and even though we're not talking a runaway margin here, there is a difference.







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[Coyote]

Here is another decent article explaining the agp aperature:
<A HREF="http://www.rojakpot.com/default.aspx?location=8&var1=0&var2=32" target="_new">http://www.rojakpot.com/default.aspx?location=8&var1=0&var2=32</A>

The proper setting is a function of two things (1) amount of vid mem on your gfx card and (2) amount of system ram. The more your card has, the less you need in agp ap. The more system ram you have, the more you can allocate to agp ap w/o possibly causing problems.

I find this all more theoretical than practical anyway. In real gaming situations, having your vid card use system ram via the ap setting is inefficient. Use by the gfx card of system ram is very slow and will likely result in stuttering etc.

I have seen settings below 64MB cause problems.

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