Trick to better FPS with 128M Video Cards?

[Sfanger]

What do you think?

I saw a post on the "other" site that says if you reduce the AGP aperature size to 16M (instead of 64M) you'll get better frames and less stuttering. The theory is that you'll force the video card to use the faster video ram rather than using slower system ram.

I'll have to give it a try on my GF4 Ti4200. Anyone know if the above theory is sound, or are gains in fps just a fluke?

Looking forward to the discussion.

[NonCon]

This is one of those topics that has inspired endless debate. There is no magic bullet here and there is no one solution that works well on every system. What is clear is that some systems benefit (2-3 fps and/or stability) from changing the aperture size.

KJ

>What do you think?
>
>I saw a post on the
>"other" site that says if
>you reduce the AGP aperature
>size to 16M (instead of
>64M) you'll get better frames
>and less stuttering. The
>theory is that you'll force
>the video card to use
>the faster video ram rather
>than using slower system ram.
>
>
>I'll have to give it a
>try on my GF4 Ti4200.
> Anyone know if the
>above theory is sound, or
>are gains in fps just
>a fluke?
>
>Looking forward to the discussion.

[Simon Evans]

(sigh)

What discussion..? No-one can answer the gentleman's question, and no-one can prove WHY it works on his system yet it doesn't work on everyones system with large-RAMmed GF cards... A `rule` is a `rule`. This, so far is a `finding`. Nothing more. Not even worth discussing, but hey, try everything and something might work...?!

FWIW no information I have suggests you can do any such thing as "...by setting the aperture size that low you are forcing the vid card to use its own, much faster memory..."
The poster fails to comprehend what AGP Aperture and Video Card RAM are for, but his results certainly indicate if you have a cr*p setup in your BIOS, don't have a clue what you're doing, and like taking risks then there might be some gains to be made.

The likeliest result of setting 16 meg as the Aperture is that you will experience random lock-ups in FS as the buffer is swamped.

A more effective explanation might be that his BIOS is not properly optimised to start with:
http://www.omegacorner.com/
(yes, he of the Drivers)
has recommendations for BIOS Settings for NVidia cards.

Or you can achieve the same result in far less time than switching to the BIOS by trying different Render Ahead settings, selectable in the normal card control panel. It always defalts to `3`, which may not be effective for your card and computer setup. Try `1` or `2` or even `4` or more - it takes seconds to do, while FS is running and will achieve better results faster than this idea. But do try this idea too - you can't do any permanent damage..!

Simon Evans

[Sfanger]

Simon:

Thanks for the sane perspective. I've been in computers since before the original PC and couldn't see how diminishing the aperature would help - but sometimes a test is worth a thousand theories. I'm running a P4, 1.7G with 1 Gig of RDRAM.

Regards,
Sfanger

[Simon Evans]

LAST EDITED ON Aug-18-02 AT 02:58PM (EDT)[p]Addendum:

PPPPPP:-
Proper Planning Prevents Pssh Poor Performance.

Found this. Answers the question. No need for `discussion` at the Other Place. Just hogwash.
Fact: If dropping your AGP setting to 16mb IMPROVES performance, you have something wrong with your system -
It's THAT simple.

http://discuss.madonion.com/forum/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=mo3dmark2001&Number=1075973

Note I still don't say "don't try it", as you can see it doesn't really matter once you go much past 16meg, so it may help diagnose a weakness in your computers setup, and that makes it useful as a tool. But only a tool would suggest it as a means to improve performance!

Simon Evans

[DanielParrott]

As I understood it, setting your AGP aperture too low sometimes disables AGP functionality, so I don't think this is a very smart tip, somehow.

D