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Topic: Managing Your BIOS + AGP Speeds (

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Nhumrod
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Joined: 09 September 2002
Location: Scotland
Posts: 13897

Posted: 28 August 2004 at 6:46am \| IP Logged

Ok, a wee story for you... I decided to install Far Cry today to give it a wee go and found that at the end of the install that it told me my AGP Appature Size was too small... I had always wondered what effect agp appatures size actually had on performance but after doing a little investigation today I discovered that it should always be set to approximately double the size of your graphics card's RAM up to a MAXIMUM of 128MB (any higher than this does not provide any significant improvement). I had mine set to 32MB before which was WRONG so have not set it to 128MB (as I have a 64MB card). To test out what effect this change has had I booted CSS Beta and ran the Video Stress Test. Previously I was getting a score of about 72FPS or so (on 1024x768)... having altered my BIOS I now get about 75. Not a massive improvement but that was only a tiny demo and it didnt cost me a penny to make the improvement... I will be trying it out over the next few days with a number of different games and report on my findings!

For this and a LOAD of other BIOS tweaks see the following web page:

http://www.rojakpot.com/default.aspx?location=7&var1=18

Edited by Demonboy on 28 August 2004 at 6:47am

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Jaguar-infinity
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Joined: 07 October 2002
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 1437

Posted: 29 August 2004 at 11:14am \| IP Logged

erm, supprised a game actually needed to pay attention to the amount of ram tbh - normally they just put up with whatever is there.

cus i have a 128mb card i tend to only set mine at equal size because otherwise its like having another 256mb swap drive that's hardly used and the system will struggle to push that much data through anyway so its un nessicary and uses a bit to much mobo bandwidth and cpu for my liking so 128 works for me, for those with lower Mb cards (like 32 or 64) i would defo recomend doubling the size tho, any larger than 128 and it actually decreases performance.

i say this because i did some testing and i actually had better 3dmark benchmarks when i only used 128mb over 256. when PCI-express becomes standard then you can use larger aperature sizes because the badwidth will be much hicher so it can handel the data.

do you want me to explain how the AGP aperature works for those who arnt so clued up on this stuff as ppl like me alex and harv?

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TheGouldFish
Honourary Member

The Mapper

Joined: 05 June 2003
Location: Scotland
Posts: 3456

Posted: 29 August 2004 at 8:56pm \| IP Logged

So I should set my agp size to 512!!! Wow thats have my mem, till I can be bothered to upgrade.

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TheGouldFish
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Jaguar-infinity
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Joined: 07 October 2002
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 1437

Posted: 30 August 2004 at 3:12am \| IP Logged

erm no gouldy... as we just said only double it if u use 64mb graphics card or lower - dont use more than a 128mb aperature with the current technology. the AGP apperature is there so that if you use up your video card mem you'll use system ram as well (upto the amount that you set the aperature to) but if you have games and video eating into your system RAM, even with a gig you'll soon start going to HDD memory as well and your system will just sloooow and lag and get itself in a state and peform poorly. There is an added effect that shifting all this bandwidth and data between apg-ram-ide on the mobo will lag everything else because of the volumes of data being transfered, bit like if your downloading at full speed on a DSL line webpages will lag when your surfing. It also ties up more and more CPU cycles which renders your CPU as much as 50% restricted just trying to shift that data around rather than doing the job in hand which is playing your game.

in short no more than 128mb - at least not untill you get PCI express and a minimum of a gig of ram imo.

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All i do at work is hang around all day, shoot stuff or go swimming... when can i do what everyone else does and sit around instead?

Nhumrod
Site Admin

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Joined: 09 September 2002
Location: Scotland
Posts: 13897

Posted: 31 August 2004 at 12:04pm \| IP Logged

Read my lips Ross:

Demonboy wrote:

I discovered that it should always be set to approximately double the size of your graphics card's RAM up to a MAXIMUM of 128MB (any higher than this does not provide any significant improvement).

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TheGouldFish
Honourary Member

The Mapper

Joined: 05 June 2003
Location: Scotland
Posts: 3456

Posted: 01 September 2004 at 2:54pm \| IP Logged

I know I know, I was just kicking around (Pah I don;t nede to tweek my system to get 5 extra frames, I think I have enough to share with every one :p )

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TheGouldFish
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Nhumrod
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Joined: 09 September 2002
Location: Scotland
Posts: 13897

Posted: 02 September 2004 at 5:46am \| IP Logged

yawn yawn - i have a bigger penis than you etc... zZzZz...

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