ASUS mobo question

Fatman777Fatman777
edited December 2003 in Hardware
Ok this is my first post so I hope I don't sound too much like a noob. I have the ASUS P4C 800 Deluxe. In the advance section of my bios there is a spot labled "Graphics Aperture Size [64MB]" This can be adjusted to everything from 4MB to 256MB. Now I'm using and ATI 9600 pro 128meg card. What will happen if I increase or decrease this setting. It's to do with mapped memory but I'm not too clear on what it does. My total system is the above mobo with 2.6 gig oc'd to 3.1, 1 gig ram, the above vid card, and a SB Audigy 2 Pla.

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Thanks in advance

Fatman777

Comments

  • DexterDexter Vancouver, BC Canada
    edited December 2003
    http://www.ati.com/support/infobase/biostutorial.html#AGPApertureSize
    AGP Aperture Size (MB)
    Select the aperture size of the Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP).

    Description:
    The aperture is a portion of PCI memory dedicated for graphics memory address space.

    Common symptom:

    If the memory aperture size is set too low you may experience:
    Windows Protections Error during startup
    Windows hangs at a black screen while loading
    the system may boot correctly but hangs after a few minutes of operation
    Default settings:
    For most graphics cards, the BIOS default setting (usually 64MB) for the AGP Aperture Size should be used. If you are using a graphics card with a 128MB or more of memory installed a larger aperture size may need to be used.

    Generally, you want the aperture size to at least match the RAM on the vid card, so in your case, 128 MB would be the minimum. If you have a lot of system RAM to spare (with 1 GB in your system, I'd say you have lot) you could up your aperture to even 256 if you want better performance for gaming, but you get that at the expense of system RAM.

    By the way, this option is on most current motherboards, so it is not just an Asus question.

    Dexter...
  • Mt_GoatMt_Goat Head Cheezy Knob Pflugerville (north of Austin) Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    While Dexter provided excellent info and spot on he wasn't being a most gracious host. So I would like to welcome you to the forums and our little home. Enjoy your stay, put up your feet and kick back. ;)
  • Fatman777Fatman777
    edited December 2003
    Thanks for the quick reply guy's. I'm off to play around a bit.

    Man this is a great site.

    Fatman777
  • BlackHawkBlackHawk Bible music connoisseur There's no place like 127.0.0.1 Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    There's been alot of theories and stuff about the agp aperture size. Some say to set it to half the amount of system ram. At first I set it to 256mb and when I tried to run Battlfield 1942, it ran really sluggish cause it didn't have enough ram. Seemed like the 256mb were reserved. I dropped it down to 64mb and the game ran fine and I didn't seen any drop in performance. I would guess it varies from from machine to machine. IMHO you should try each setting (64mb and up) and play some games or run 3DMark and see which gives you the best performance.
  • DexterDexter Vancouver, BC Canada
    edited December 2003
    mtgoat wrote:
    While Dexter provided excellent info and spot on he wasn't being a most gracious host. So I would like to welcome you to the forums and our little home. Enjoy your stay, put up your feet and kick back. ;)


    Right you are mtgoat :)

    Welcome to our corner of the internet, we hope you find it as informational, fun, and down-right homey as we do.

    :cheers:

    Dexter...
  • PirateNinjaPirateNinja Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    Well the setting determines how much system memory is allocated to AGP applications. If you have 128mb onboard your video card, I would never set the apature higher than 128. Infact you are probably best off at 64 until the newer games with tons more textures and shading start pouring out. Doom3, etc. Oh crapola, Im jsut repeating what was already said =[
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