What AGP apperture setting are you people using? For 64mb cards

  • Thread starter Thread starter Asestar
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A

Asestar

Simple question. Some say 64mb is enough, some say 32mb. My mobo manual says
use 128mb?!

Please tell how much ram your video card have. Mine is Radeon8500le 64mb. ;)
 
I have a 8500le 64Mb and I have the AGP Aperture set to 256Mb. From what
I've read, set the aperture to half of what your Physical memory is - as in
your system RAM - not the RAM on the graphics card.

Glenn
 
you will not notice any performance difference between 64mb and 128mb at all
setting it from 64mb to 128mb you may actually get stability issues so may
have to put it back down to 64mb but use 128mb if things are ok.
 
Asestar said:
Simple question. Some say 64mb is enough, some say 32mb. My mobo
manual says use 128mb?!

Please tell how much ram your video card have. Mine is Radeon8500le
64mb. ;)
Click to expand...

generaly you set it to 50% of your system memory
so if you have 512meg
set it to 256meg
anything over 64meg is fine though, below that stuff doesn't work too well
(video streams)
 
@ndrew said:
The rule of thumb has always been to set it to twice the value of the
ram on board the card (not system ram .. what a nonsense that is) and
the tests seem to prove this point.
Click to expand...

No, never heard that before.

It's always been to set it to half your system RAM.

Mind you I'm not saying that makes sense in all cases, it's easily
possible that you video card will not be able to use anywhere near that
amount of RAM.
 
@ndrew said:
The rule of thumb has always been to set it to twice the value of the
ram on board the card (not system ram .. what a nonsense that is) and
the tests seem to prove this point.

regards

@ndrew
Click to expand...

Yep...
 
No, never heard that before.

It's always been to set it to half your system RAM.
Click to expand...

That was the general rule of thumb a couple of years back, but it
doesn't apply now that a lot of people have 1GB+ RAM.
 
Asestar said:
Simple question. Some say 64mb is enough, some say 32mb. My mobo manual says
use 128mb?!

Please tell how much ram your video card have. Mine is Radeon8500le 64mb. ;)
Click to expand...

I have a 64meg card, always used 128 meg apature.
 
The AGP aperture is the amount of system ram you are willing to let your
video card use. Generally the more the better, but don't use it all.
 
GTX_SlotCar said:
The AGP aperture is the amount of system ram you are willing to let
your video card use. Generally the more the better, but don't use it
all.
Click to expand...

Presumably though the graphics card only uses system ram when it runs out of
its own ram? Does this happen often? Isn't the whole argument about 256mb
cards being a bit pointless at the moment because not many games use more
than 128mb at the moment?
 
Yes, only when the card runs out of ram. No, it doesn't happen often,
especially with the new, fast cards. Their ram is usually faster than system
ram. But it does happen. How often depends on your video card.
When it does happen, your program will slow down dramatically for a few
seconds or crash. If your card has 64mb of memory and you have 128mb of
system ram, it could happen more often. In that case, for example, you
wouldn't want to set the AGP aperture to 128 :-)
Aside from that, you probably wouldn't notice much difference in video speed
between setting of 64 and 128, but it may make a difference in video speed
clocking software that stresses the card.

Gary
 
I have 512 mb system ram. Seting agp to 256mb does incur stability problems.
As indicated by test.
 
Asestar said:
Simple question. Some say 64mb is enough, some say 32mb. My mobo manual says
use 128mb?!

Please tell how much ram your video card have. Mine is Radeon8500le 64mb. ;)
Click to expand...

I have a Radeon 9800pro 128mb.
Graphic Win Size (which is the equivalent of AGP Aperture Size)
set to 64mb.
This has been much discussed here and in many other forums for years
now.
You would likely do well to test the settings and determine what works
best for you and your particular hardware.

Frank

Below from: http://www.rojakpot.com/
Adrian's Rojak Pot-The BIOS Optimization Guide

Graphic Win Size

Common Options : 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256

Quick Review

This BIOS feature does two things. It selects the size of the AGP
aperture (hence, the name Graphic Windows Size) and it determines the
size of the GART (Graphics Address Relocation Table).

The aperture is a portion of the PCI memory address range that is
dedicated for use as AGP memory address space while the GART is a
translation table that translates AGP memory addresses into actual
memory addresses which are often fragmented. The GART allows the
graphics card to see the memory region available to it as a contiguous
piece of memory range.

Host cycles that hit the aperture range are forwarded to the AGP bus
without need for translation. The aperture size also determines the
maximum amount of system memory that can be allocated to the AGP
graphics card for texture storage.

Please note that the AGP aperture is merely address space, not actual
physical memory in use. Although it is very common to hear people
recommending that the AGP aperture size should be half the size of
system memory, that is wrong!

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. So, if you
upgrade to a graphics card with more memory, you shouldn't be
"deceived" into thinking that you will need even more AGP memory! On
the contrary, a smaller AGP memory space will be required.

It is recommended that you keep the AGP aperture around 64MB to 128MB
in size, even if your graphics card has a lot of onboard memory. This
allows flexibility in the event that you actually need extra memory
for texture storage. It will also keep the GART (Graphics Address
Relocation Table) within a reasonable size.
 
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