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Breakapart
Village Leader
Joined: 03 May 2002
Posts: 84
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quote:
Originally posted by dahool
More RAM = less stuttering due to less HDD loading = performance increase. 
- dahool
Exactly correct...
How AGP and System RAM work together...
http://www.pcmech.com/show/video/9/
"To create lifelike 3D images, the CPU must perform intensive 3D calculations. The graphics controller processes the texture data and bitmaps. In many cases, the controller must read elements from 7 or 8 different textures and average them into a single pixel on the screen. When this calculation is performed, the pixel must be stored in the memory buffer. Because these textures are so large, they cannot be stored on the video card's buffer. With AGP, they instead are stored in the main system memory. Because of this, it is recommended that you have a large amount of system memory in your machine. This should be no problem due to the low prices of RAM. Intel, no doubt, took this into account when they decided to use your RAM for graphics."
For more information you can read the Microsoft notes on AGP memory addressing, which basically outlines how System Memory is reserved for use by the AGP device.
More RAM does = more performance with an AGP system, however above 256mb the increase begins to fade away. If you have more than 256mb make sure your BIOS has the AGP port set to 256 any lower and you limit the potential the AGP device can achieve. |
Wed May 08, 2002 2:11 pm |
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Guest
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More RAM does = more performance with an AGP system, however above 256mb the increase begins to fade away. If you have more than 256mb make sure your BIOS has the AGP port set to 256 any lower and you limit the potential the AGP device can achieve.
I'm going to have to disagree with this. Back when Intel was thinking that with AGP vendors could get away without integrating any dedicated video memory onto their motherboards, storing textures in this manner was done. Nowadays with consumers trying to decide between 64MB and 128MB video cards, I think an optimized grphics engine keeps those textures right there on the video card. AGP is mighty fast if you think about it, but in terms of today's hardware and framerates, a transfer from main memory while you're playing the game is, as far as performance is concerned, the kiss of death.
But I sure don't know the answer to the original question. Should I upgrade my 1.2ghz to some DDR system? Or do I get a TI 4200? I sure can't afford to do both...
And WTF is with all those pauses? I have 768MB RAM, I have nothing else running, graphics are toned down big time. Why the hiccups? It sure isn't reading the HD... |
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Wed May 08, 2002 3:47 pm |
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Mosman22
Village Dweller
Joined: 03 May 2002
Posts: 15
Location: Philadelphia area |
| Answer comming soon (I hope!) |
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By the end of today I should be in an ideal position to answer the processor vs. video card debate. According to ups.com my new GF4 4200 finally arived in the area this morning (after a painfully slow ground ship from CA - next time I'll spend a few extra bucks for air shipping!). The thing with me is that I have been playing the game for the last few days on an Athlon 600 with TNT2. Outdoors I chug along at 8-15 frames per sec, though the game is so good I hardly notice. Though maybe it does explain why I've been spending a lot more time exploring dungeons and big, mostly indoor cities like Vivec (where I avergage 25-40 fps) than wandering the wilderness. Still I am real curious to see what kind of affect the new card has on my experience. The perfromance will probably be hamstung a bit by my old-style RAM and motherboard (which I've heard might not support AGP speeds over 1X).
I was surprised to observe that shifting the resolution between 640x480 and 1024x768 barely affected my framerate at all! So I'm playing in 1024x724 despite my low end system. Those of you who have been running at 800x600 or lower because they think their PC's can't handle any higher might want want to give the higher res a shot anyway. |
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Wed May 08, 2002 4:16 pm |
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Breakapart
Village Leader
Joined: 03 May 2002
Posts: 84
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Information taken directly from MadOnion.com if anyone knows AGP it's them, they based an entire Video performance/testing suite in that area.
"Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP):
AGP is a PC bus architecture developed to supplement PCI. AGP is more powerful and it can also use the system memory to store textures in. In PCI-based 3d cards the texture memory is limited by the card's own memory. "
"AGP Aperture:
The AGP Aperture setting specifies to the AGP chipset how much of a PC's system memory, including virtual memory, is addressable by an AGP video card. The “standard” size is 64MB, but with some motherboards you are able to change it from 4MB to 256MB. A general rule is to keep it ½ of your system memory. 256MB RAM -> AGP Aperture Size 128MB."
The AGP port allows you to load and have ready for use MORE textures than your video card memory alone can handle. When people discuss 64mb -vs- 128mb onboard video memory the problem is the AGP memory is still commonly used over 64mb, so the speed/texture difference is very minor.
<<<Back when Intel was thinking that with AGP vendors could get away without integrating any dedicated video memory onto their motherboards>>>
You may have "shared" memory and AGP confused.
"Shared" memory is when the AGP port DOES control ALL the video memory, the card has no RAM included-(when video in built into the mainboard)
AGP port is the transfer bus that allows a video card to use MORE memory than it was designed with, for texture storage. |
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Wed May 08, 2002 4:31 pm |
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Guest
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Does anyone know the maximum amount of RAM that Windows98 will
recognize? I heard it was 512 MB. I was told that any more than that wouldn't even be utilized by my systym with WIN98 and that you need Windows 2000 or XP to take advantage of more than 512 MB. |
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Wed May 08, 2002 5:41 pm |
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Guest
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Anyone? |
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Wed May 08, 2002 6:06 pm |
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firebead
Village Dweller
Joined: 05 May 2002
Posts: 13
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I have a similar situation (or even worse). My rig is P3-933 (512MB RAM) and Radeon LE. The games runs well, with rare crashes, but the frame rate is TOO low. I am taking about low teens outside, and best is around 15. Indoor can get around 20 - 25 if not crowded.
I amy consider myself lucky since I can actually play this game with my setup, but the problem is my eys hurt like hell. The low FPS makes me feel dizzy and after a while I feel I look everything very fuzzy. Then I have to force myself to rest a bit and continue play  This is torture!
Someone suggested I should get a GF4 Ti420 when it's out. Is it gonna help with my system? I am running Win2K. Does Win2K slow this game down a lot comparing with Win98SE?
BTW, what does "Bump" mean? |
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Wed May 08, 2002 6:17 pm |
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Breakapart
Village Leader
Joined: 03 May 2002
Posts: 84
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quote:
Originally posted by Anonymous
Does anyone know the maximum amount of RAM that Windows98 will
recognize? I heard it was 512 MB. I was told that any more than that wouldn't even be utilized by my systym with WIN98 and that you need Windows 2000 or XP to take advantage of more than 512 MB.
For Win98 i wouldn;t bother with anything above 512mb.
Considering both Win2000 and WinXP are FAR superior in memory management, if you planned to use more than 512mb you should upgrade to one of those.
Here is an article MS posted about Win98 and how they miscalculated virtual memory in Win98, which caused LOTS of people to get errors if they installed more than 512mb of system memory.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q253912 |
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Wed May 08, 2002 6:22 pm |
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firebead
Village Dweller
Joined: 05 May 2002
Posts: 13
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Bump...
Last edited by firebead on Wed May 08, 2002 6:28 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Wed May 08, 2002 6:24 pm |
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firebead
Village Dweller
Joined: 05 May 2002
Posts: 13
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quote:
Originally posted by Anonymous
Does anyone know the maximum amount of RAM that Windows98 will
recognize? I heard it was 512 MB. I was told that any more than that wouldn't even be utilized by my systym with WIN98 and that you need Windows 2000 or XP to take advantage of more than 512 MB.
I can answer the RAM question under Win98SE:
The ram to performance is not linear. Under Win98SE, you will see the most performance gain at 256MB. The OS will support as many ram ur mobo supports, but then, after 256MB, the performance gain is minimal.
One way to boost the performance a little under win98SE is to force the OS use physical RAm than virtual ram by adding the following line to system.ini under [386enh]:
ConservativeSwapFileUsage=1 |
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Wed May 08, 2002 6:25 pm |
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Guest
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quote:
Originally posted by Breakapart
The AGP port allows you to load and have ready for use MORE textures than your video card memory alone can handle. When people discuss 64mb -vs- 128mb onboard video memory the problem is the AGP memory is still commonly used over 64mb, so the speed/texture difference is very minor.
Sure, sure. All I'm trying to say is that nowadays if you're packing a 64/128MB card, you're not likely to see "MORE textures than your video card memory alone can handle" in any given "level" (for lack of a better term), and for that reason AGP transfers happen at the beginning load for the level and not during play. Further this is not coincidence but because of 1) graphics card makers embiggifying graphics card memory just for this reason (this is why we have these big memory cards) and 2) games makers optimizing their levels/textures to enhance performance by avoiding such transfers. Both of these to avoid the performance hit you get when you flush out the textures from the video card's memory and refill it with textures from your system memory via the AGP Aperture.
I don't even know what I'm talking about really, but my original point was this (and here a developer or super benchmarking freakoid could really clue us in easily):
Playing Morrowind with a 64MB or 128MB video card, in one area (demarked by the loading bar), I don't think there are any AGP transfers going on because the textures have been optimized to fit in the (pretty huge) video memory of just such a card.
I could be wrong, and I have no way of verifying, plus I'm no brainiac at this stuff. Just wanted to clarify my point. |
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Wed May 08, 2002 6:46 pm |
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JDR13
Magister of the Light
Joined: 16 Apr 2002
Posts: 376
Location: Michigan, United States |
quote:
Originally posted by firebead
quote:
Originally posted by Anonymous
Does anyone know the maximum amount of RAM that Windows98 will
recognize? I heard it was 512 MB. I was told that any more than that wouldn't even be utilized by my systym with WIN98 and that you need Windows 2000 or XP to take advantage of more than 512 MB.
I can answer the RAM question under Win98SE:
The ram to performance is not linear. Under Win98SE, you will see the most performance gain at 256MB. The OS will support as many ram ur mobo supports, but then, after 256MB, the performance gain is minimal.
One way to boost the performance a little under win98SE is to force the OS use physical RAm than virtual ram by adding the following line to system.ini under [386enh]:
ConservativeSwapFileUsage=1
So are you saying that if I double my RAM from 256 to 512 I would see very little performance? Even in a game like Morrowind? I like using WIN98SE and I would like to keep using it for the time being. I haven't heard anyone say that they had any positive performance increase after upgrading to WINXP. |
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Wed May 08, 2002 8:35 pm |
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Guest
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quote:
Originally posted by Anonymous
Does anyone know the maximum amount of RAM that Windows98 will
recognize? I heard it was 512 MB. I was told that any more than that wouldn't even be utilized by my systym with WIN98 and that you need Windows 2000 or XP to take advantage of more than 512 MB.
Max is 762megs, if you put anymore than that in your system 98SE WILL NOT boot at all. It gives you some error about system files being corrupted and says that you must reinstall (tried it by putting 1.5 gigs in my system). Actually just reduce it back to below 768 and you're fine. What I ended up doing though was upgrading to 2000 Pro, throwing all 1.5 in there and getting a Ramdrive program. Now I just install all my games to the 1 gig ramdrive (leaving 512 meg for use), make a disc image of the ramdrive and when I want to play a particular game I just load the image into the ram drive. It means next to no load times and silky smooth play in anything that requires accessing of files from the HD (I also keep my swap file on the ram drive). It's a VERY nice improvement, now my bottleneck is just my processor (1.4 Athlon).
-Mltdwn |
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Wed May 08, 2002 8:47 pm |
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JDR13
Magister of the Light
Joined: 16 Apr 2002
Posts: 376
Location: Michigan, United States |
What I meant to say was "see very little performance increase" |
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Wed May 08, 2002 8:50 pm |
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firebead
Village Dweller
Joined: 05 May 2002
Posts: 13
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JDR,
I did a test. I unplugged 256MB ram from my PC, so I only got 256MB left.
I can feel the load time is almost the same, maybe a little more, but sure not noticable. The FPS is the same as I have 512MB installed.
Again, I am using Win2K, and it's a P3-933/Radeon LE system. So maybe my CPU or GC is the bottleneck. |
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Thu May 09, 2002 12:02 am |
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