AGP aperture setting: do not modify!

[bjack]

This is my advice after changing my AGP aperture size from the default 64MB to 128 in BIOS. Many "Bf2 optimising tips" threads and web sites suggest increasing this size. I already read elsewhere that this was a bad idea but I tried it for a week or so anyway. And it sucked! My framerates were generally worse, and sometimes would get "stuck" at a low framerate until I rebooted. Exiting and restarting the game didn't help, and I also had problems with bad performance in World Of Warcraft, which had always run nice and smooth. I went back to default settings and life is much better now. Some of these optimization tips are a bit haphazard really. The best advice I can offer is, make sure all your drivers and IRQs are happy, eliminate spyware and any other extra non-OS crap running in the background, ie keep your system generally clean. You can look at your processes in Task Manager and google all the filenames that seem fishy to see if its 3rd party or part of the operating system.

The real moral of the story is: leave AGP aperture settings alone!

[Digital-Boy]

Re: AGP aperture setting: do not modify!

I think reducing AGP speed was what actually made BF2 playable on my modest Radeon 9200 video card (either that or the AA setting, I forget).

[bjack]

Re: AGP aperture setting: do not modify!

AGP speed? You mean 4x vs. 8x? I'm talking about aperture, which defaults to 64 megabytes. Aperture is definitely not a "speed".

[Bobcat]

Re: AGP aperture setting: do not modify!

General words of advise state that the more RAM you have on your graphics card, the lower you can leave the AGP Aperture size, because the AGP Aperture is just RAM borrowed from your system memory.

[Digital-Boy]

Re: AGP aperture setting: do not modify!

AGP speed? You mean 4x vs. 8x? I'm talking about aperture, which defaults to 64 megabytes. Aperture is definitely not a "speed".

Yeah, the 4x and 8x one. You see, I know nothing of these things. -_-

[Flares]

Re: AGP aperture setting: do not modify!

Depending on your mobo and gfx card, the BIOS default may be 64 or 128mb... There's no hard and fast rule regarding increasing the aperture to 256mb (if available), leaving it as default or reducing the size. Experimentation and benchmarking is the key.

[Auto-ER-]

Re: AGP aperture setting: do not modify!

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

[evilzucchini]

Re: AGP aperture setting: do not modify!

The problem with laymen tweak guides is this common pitfall:

"It boosted MY performance and so, it must boost performance."

If there were an simple rule of thumb like "the bigger the AAS, the better" there would be no setting because it would just be set to the highest setting.

There are tradeoffs for everything. So it all depends on your system. But the general rule above that "General words of advise state that the more RAM you have on your graphics card, the lower you can leave the AGP Aperture size, because the AGP Aperture is just RAM borrowed from your system memory." Is pretty good.

However, you could also add "the more RAM you have, the higher you can set your AGP apeture size. I have a 256MB graphics card and two G of RAM. I have the AAS to 256 because even BF2 comes nowhere NEAR using 2G of RAM. Whether it helped or not, I cannot say because I got the RAM and upped the AAS at the same time.

[coldmist]

Re: AGP aperture setting: do not modify!

I had very low fps (with the move-mouse-a-smidgeon-and-view-changes-180' effect) on an AGP 6800GT until I changed my Aperture up to 256MB. Now, it's smooth and steady. Not really high, but high enough and steady enough for middle/high settings at 1280x1024.

1GB of system ram.

[DrunkenPirate]

Re: AGP aperture setting: do not modify!

Altering the AGP apertire size should not have thse machine killing effects you described, they will impact performance in 3D apps somwhat but that's about it.

Changing it to 128 when you only have 512MB RAM or something is also a silly move.

[T1no]

Re: AGP aperture setting: do not modify!

General words of advise state that the more RAM you have on your graphics card, the lower you can leave the AGP Aperture size, because the AGP Aperture is just RAM borrowed from your system memory.

what he said ^^^

too much ram allocated for your graphic memory can kill your system performance.
soo, tweak it and make it ballance.
for battlefield 2 i need to have at least 512mb aas
for cs source and other games i can run it with 256mb aas

for me:

6800 128mb
system ram 1.5
agp apperture 512
no stuttering
alt tabbing = slow

6800 128mb
system ram 1.5
agp apperture 256
some/massive stuttering
alt tabbing = fast

i am currently using the 512 apperture.

[NoSoup4You]

Re: AGP aperture setting: do not modify!

Performances is totally dependent upon the machine. You can always try adjusting the apature if you see negitive effects reset it lower.

[SerbSniper1]

Re: AGP aperture setting: do not modify!

BFG Technologies stated that the setting should be HALF of your graphics card size. ie.. 256mb should be set at 128mb. Call them yourself.

[-=AudigyXi=-]

Re: AGP aperture setting: do not modify!

Aperture setting is done via the f2 boot screen correct?

[mistakenvt]

Re: AGP aperture setting: do not modify!

I have an Athlon 2500+ with 1gb RAM and 9800pro , and the ingame graphics set to low/med and it still stutters when there are explosions and stuff. (anti aliasing set to 2) I've done trial and error for a while but cant get a decent setting. Now I know my machine isnt right up to date, but it should be better than what I'm currently experiencing.. right?

If I have a 256mb card and 1gb RAM, I should set my AAS to 128mb?
(Getting a 1gb RAM chunk shortly...)