AGP Aperture size??

[BoboKatt]

I have no idea exactly what this does. My MSI Neo2 plat board has now 2 GIGs of ram (2 X1 GIG). My AGP 6800GT has 256 Megs. What should I set this for? Does increasing it make things go smoother if you have more ram to allocate? What happens if you decrease it to say 64 MEGS?

Thanks

 

[Munky]

I believe it's best to set it to the same size as the amount of mem on the video card.

 

[Ejhocky313]

I have heard to set it at half of what's on the video card...But I'm not sure, anyone else know much about this?(bump)

 

[Matthias99]

AGP Aperture Size is the maximum amount of system RAM that can be allocated by the video driver/card to use for extra storage if all the requested textures, etc. can't fit in the card's onboard memory. In a VERY loose sense, it is kind of like a 'pagefile' for your video card.

I wouldn't bother messing with it if you are not having problems. With a 256MB video card, you are unlikely to be using it very often (unless you do things like running Doom3/Quake4 in "Ultra" quality mode, or running EQ2 at its maxed-out settings).

 

[garkon8]

I have bounced this around on numerous boards, and have never received a definite answer. I keep mine at max - 256, which matches my card.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: garkon8
I have bounced this around on numerous boards, and have never received a definite answer. I keep mine at max - 256, which matches my card.

I'd say you probably want (card RAM + AGP Aperture Size) to be at least 128-256MB. With a 256MB video card, very few games are going to exceed the amount of onboard RAM even at the highest quality settings.

The memory is allocated/deallocated on demand by the video driver, so setting it to the maximum allowable size should not hurt performance if you end up not needing it.