Leadtek nForce2 Graphics ram allocation question

[Motley67]

I just got this board. IS there any way to increase the ram used by the onboard graphics. Games play OK, but I just want to increase the memory usage temporarily.

I know...I know...get a real video card. I just need to use this until I get my Geforce4 4400 back from RMA.

Thanks

Motley

 

[Lord Evermore]

You can't FORCE it to use more memory. All you can do is set the AGP Aperture in the CMOS setup to something higher, though you shouldn't go higher than half your total memory, and there's probably a setting for the AGP cache or shared memory. I just looked at the manual, it's called "Frame Buffer Size". This setting allocates part of main memory to be used by the onboard video.

You're not going to get very great performance out of it, relatively. As you use more memory for the video, that leaves less memory available for the CPU to use for the game itself. The frame buffer is a completely takeover of that memory space by the video, the system can't use it (so you'll see 248MB of memory in Windows if you have 256MB and 8MB allocated to the frame buffer). The AGP aperture isn't a total takeover, it just allows the AGP system to use that much memory if it needs to. They'll both end up being the same speed since they both access the same memory system. I'd say set the frame buffer size to 32MB or even 64MB, if you have at least 256MB and the AGP to 128MB. Of course, performance will depend entirely on what games you play. It also depends on the memory speed, since lower speed memory means lower speed access for the video.

 

[Motley67]

Right now, I have 512mb PC2700 corsair xms ram in the system. Like I said, I only need it temporarily until I get my card back from RMA. But...my how I love my games. I'll try the frame buffer thing and see what that does.

Thanks!

 

[Lord Evermore]

The default is actually 32MB for the frame buffer. That's normally enough for an add-in video card's memory to handle most games without having to use AGP texturing (although that's changing with the newest games). Moving it up to 64MB may help, but it's also likely that the severely low speed of the main memory compared to onboard memory is the main cause of low performance; a 400MHz memory bus is only 3.2GB/s, whereas a Radeon9700 Pro with a 600MHz (DDR) bus is 19.2GB/s or a Ti4600 with 10.4GB/s.

 

[Motley67]

With the buffer set at 32mb, I can play BF1942 comfortably at 800x600. Although I don't know how it'll handle an all out assault with allot of players. Guess I'll have to find out.

I should have my "real card" back by the beginning of next week.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Why exactly did you get an nForce2 IGP board in the first place, if you're using a Ti4400? Most people don't plan ahead for video card failure by getting a board with integrated graphics, and would just use some old GF2 or G400 while waiting for the RMA.

 

[Motley67]

I had an Asus A7V333 and I lost 2 4400 video cards on it. I don't think it agreed with the video cards because my wife's GeForce3 ran forever on it. So I moved the Asus board and GeForce3 over to my wifes machine and RMA'd the video card. I needed a new board and I like the idea of having backups to hold me over during RMA periods. The leadtek board had on board video, sound and NIC as well as firewire and it is a faster chipset so I can use the 333MHz procs when I'm ready. Besides I got the board at NewEgg for $125.00.