AGP Aperture Size

[adamg]

All i know is that you should set it at or above the amount of memory on your video card, but what exactly does it do?

 

[ejm]

Hi m8
I have mine set at minimum, as I believe my agp card has plenty.
What it actually does is allocate more memory from your main memory incase you require more for particular eg. hi-resolution games or graphics programs.

ejm

 

[adamg]

What do you mean by allocate? Cause i have 768MB of ram and it still says 768mb in the system properties screen, while i had a computer with 128mb and 8mb shared integrated grahphics, and it only showed 120mb.

 

[ejm]

Hey, you asked "All i know is that you should set it at or above the amount of memory on your video card, but what exactly does it do?". All I'm saying is that when your video ram is used up, it takes memory from your normal ram.

Eg. you play a game that requires 16mb of ram and your setting is set at 8mb. When you start playing the game and you need more than the 8mb, more will be allocated to make up the requirement. How the shipset does it, I have no idea as I'm not a tech.

ejm

 

[adamg]

I C
Didn't mean to sound mean lol. Thanks for all the help.

 

[jumpy]

With integrated graphics, the 8mb is always allocated to graphics and can't be changed. With a video card, the ram is dynamically allocated if its needed, just like a program does.

 

[Gus K]

you should set it at or above the amount of memory on your video card,

It don't have to be above. 64 to 128 is fine.

 

[Sazar]

Originally posted by Gus K
It don't have to be above. 64 to 128 is fine.

depends on many factors actually...

you want to enable as much swapping as you can... but not too much and not too little in order to maximise performance..

the normal outlook is 1/2 of system memory.. but that is no longer true with many people having 512/1024 mb of ram...

therefore set it to around the size of your gfx cards memory... and then bench and bench it increasing and decreasing the aperture and see what this does... just leave @ which ever gives you the best performance..

 

[Gus K]

depends on many factors actually...

Not really. A 32mb card might work better at 128, but a 128mb card will work fine at 64 - 128. System memory really doesn't come into play these days with 128mb cards. And some computers in real word applications just don't lke a 256 setting (might have something to do with the large Graphics Address Relocation Table that is created).

Try as I may with my 512mb system and 128mb vidcard, I have seen no advantage (in benchmarks or real world tests) , to setting the aperture at anything over 64. It would also appear than current games these days all use less than 32mb of textures, giving 128mb cards plenty of headroom. Performance wise, most 64mb TI4200's would benchmark better than their 128mb brethren (at normal resolutions) due to the use of faster memory. Playing with the aperture makes no difference. If You want performance increases, look for cards with fast memory.

 

[Sazar]

Originally posted by Gus K
Not really.

http://www.tweak3d.net/articles/aperture-size/

it can be set higher than 128 mb as per the testing there.. it depends on many factors (gfx memory/system memory) in order to find the sweetspot..

the only REAL guarantee is that it has to be above around 16mb (still depends a bit on the cards..)

I did not disagree with the 64-128mb range since this is what most people recommend...

 

[jonifen]

I used to have aperture rate set at 256 on my old system (p3 750, 32mb gf2mx, 512mb ram). Setting it to anything lower made d3d games primarily (although it happened with some ogl games too) really jittery and quite often unplayable.

With my current system, its fixed at 128, and I cant find a way to change it - I need it higher to be honest as some d3d games are still not running quite right (even though I still have the gf2mx).


Adamg, I have the same motherboard as you - have you got an option in the BIOS to change aperture rate? And if so, where is it? I've searched right through the BIOS but never found it

 

[jonifen]

OK, just did some intense research into changing AGP Aperture rate as I think that for someone with the same mobo as me to even ask about aperture rate, there must be a way to change it... and there is!! But we cant see it

I found some interesting information here - http://www.hothardware.com/hh_files/Motherboards/i845pe_shootout(4).shtml - and although I'm currently at work so unfortunately unable to find out if it does work, I'm pretty sure it'll allow modification of the aperture rate as I saw a photo of a 8pe667's bios (non-ultra although the non-ultra manual also fails to mention the ability to change aperture rate) showing aperture rate here - http://www.ocworkbench.com/2002/gigabyte/8pe667/8pe667gallery2.htm (direct picture being here - http://www.ocworkbench.com/2002/gigabyte/8pe667/Picture_418_copy.jpg )

from http://www.hothardware.com/hh_files/Motherboards/i845pe_shootout(4).shtml
In the course of writing up this review, however, we found something a little strange. Almost hidden in the manual, and not mentioned anywhere else that we could find, was a command to enable the Advanced Features in the BIOS. After getting into the BIOS, the user must then hit CTRL-F1 to allow the modification of the DRAM timings and AGP settings. It was unclear to us why these options would need to be hidden from the user, or not have this command listed on the main menu itself. Needless to say, it was back to the testing grounds with the "improved" system. All of the scores in the following tests are shown with this new setup. Overclocking with the 8PE667 went very well. This board, like the others offers the ability to lock the AGP/PCI speed. It also gives users the ability to alter the VCore, AGP and DDR voltages. When all was said and done, we were able to hit a stable top FSB speed of 168MHz, which equates to 2856MHz

seems as if I may have solved my problem afterall lol

 

[jonifen]

Yup, as I expected, it showed the menu to change the Aperture Rate

It also let me enable SMART on the HDDs, but thats another story

 

[Sazar]

Originally posted by jonifen
Yup, as I expected, it showed the menu to change the Aperture Rate

It also let me enable SMART on the HDDs, but thats another story

lol... thats kewl...

any difference in performance ?