Agp

[Jaredster]

will a 8x agp geforce fx card work with my 4x agp mobo port?

What does it mean when my comp says that my agp aperture is 128mb? Does that mean that a 256mb card will act as a 128mb card?

[WhoGivesARatsAss]

yes an 8X agp card will run in a 4X agp mobo

when agp aperture size is set to 128 theoretically a maximum of 128mb of data can be transferred in one cycle.. that will decrease the perf of a 256mb card.. in case u have a 256 mb card u have to set the aperture size to 256 mb in the bios..

lastly what card are u looking at.. ?

[Rhenna]

The AGP aperture size refers to a range of possible memory addresses that the video card may use as an extension of it's onboard, physical RAM. If a "call" to or from that range of addresses is made, it's placed on the AGP bus transparently, as though that area of system RAM was part of the video card's local memory. Principally, system RAM is used as a means for texture storage.

Actually, the MORE physical RAM your video card has, the LESS need there is to allocate address space in the AGP aperture, as there is less likelihood that the video card will need to use system memory for texture storage. So, a 256Mb video card would NOT (probably) ever need a 256Mb AGP aperture, but setting the aperture that high wouldn't do any harm, (providing you have at least that much actual RAM), as system memory is only used when necessary.

The AGP aperture shouldn't be set lower than 16Mb, since an address range "lookup" table is created, and that occupies 12Mb of memory itself. In fact, the actual usable AGP memory is determined by subtracting 12, (for the lookup table), from the AGP aperture, and then dividing the remainder by two. Therefore, with an AGP aperture of 128, an address space of 128Mb is mapped out in physical system memory, but in this case, only 58Mb of that memory range could actually store texture data. Or, 26Mb of textures with an AGP aperture of 64 selected.

I would think a setting of 128 would probably be fine for most people.

[sushi128]

::ahem:: what she said......

people fiddle with it.....but you're 1 of 3 people i know what would even think of typing that out without confusing him or herself :)

btw, the "half your physical RAM" rule is just stupid.

[WhoGivesARatsAss]

i just set the damn thing to 256 mb anyways.. i have a 128mb card.. so WhoGivesARatsAss.. and I was right yay.. (or wasnt I?)

[Rhenna]

Did any of that make sense? (This isn't a "bourbon night" or I wouldn't have dared to try!)

[RAY16]

AGP is cool.



+1

[sushi128]

ok, basically it has little to do with physical memory, but is the amount of agp memory addressed for texture storage.

the AGP x 2 + 12 thing is a "whatever" deal....

the "look up table" is virtual addressing....

and, 16mb is stupid cause you'd be left with 2mb for textures.

setting the aperture really high doesn't do any harm cause no physical memory is being reserved.

and finally, setting a 256mb aperture size with 128mb RAM doesn't mean anything, cause it's just an address. it'll use up your 128mb and god knows what kinda black hole the rest of your textures dump into :)

there, the good simple rum version as opposed to the so called "non-bourbon" ;)

[Rhenna]

Originally posted by RAY16
AGP is cool.

Well, I respect that opinion, but I've always felt that if it worked so well, why are we seeing 256Mb video cards? (I mean, I KNOW the answer, but Intel originally sold AGP as a bit of alchemy; that is, "virtually unlimited texture storage without the need for costly video RAM", if I remember the quote correctly.)

I recall reading an interview with 2 Intel engineers who claimed that, with AGP, all you really needed on the card was 2Mb for a frame buffer! Now, to be fair, this was probably late '97, early '98. So, running in 32-bit color in excess of 1024 X 768 wasn't being considered, but... 2Mb? Of course, as usual, Intel says, "Jump!" and everyone says, "How High?"

By the way, you know that little four-note tune that's played on the TV and radio commercials every time an Intel processor is mentioned? The lyrics to that are, "Just kiss our ass!"

(The anger....)

[WhoGivesARatsAss]

wtf is pci express then.. it never compelled me to read up on such shit.. but hey what the heck! and when is it coming out.. care to enlighten me.. just tell me easy shit.. no lingo oks!.. pci express is faster than agp.. point taken.. but wtf is it actually?

care to xplain rhenna or raw fish?

[sushi128]

PCI Express is another one of Intel's (many know it as 3GIO) standards. it's just another bus except it's completely serial (serial and parallel architecture seem to swap in cycles). basically a standard to replace AGP.

PCI express is not to be confused with PCI-X, which is just an imrpovement over the current PCI bus.

[Rhenna]

I guess we'll see it when there's a need for it. I suppose in servers and graphic/CAD workstations, at first, if it's not already there. An imperfect comparison, but it's kind of like comparing conventional ATA hard drives with serial ATA drives. Except, this can interconnect damn near everything; and, it's scalable.

I'm having a difficult time seeing it implemented in the average PC anytime soon. I mean, how much market penetration has serial ATA acheived? Outside the rabid, hardcore geek, not too much by my thinking...

[sushi128]

one word (your word): scalability.

sucks right now because there's no real advantage. and serial ATA is kinda like this i guess :D

and yeah, express will do 1394, USB and all that good stuff.....

you should see the throughput those 10k SATA drives can achieve though. still not scsi.

[Jaredster]

thanks guys. another question, when a 8x agp geforce fx card is on a 4x agp mobo port, does it act as a 4x video card. It would make sense if it did.

[Jaredster]

if i upgrade my mobo to one with a 8x agp... will i need to get a gfx card with 8x? Or will a 4x gfx card work with a 8x agp port.

[sushi128]

it'll run at the greatest common agp speed (8/4x mobo + 4x card= 4x harmony).

[Jaredster]

does anyone know if i upgrade my mobo to one with a 8x agp... will i need to get a gfx card with 8x? Or will a 4x gfx card work with a 8x agp port.

[Hitman]

Are you serious or taking advantage of the kind folks here?

[WhoGivesARatsAss]

Originally posted by Hitman
Are you serious or taking advantage of the kind folks here?

hahaha.. dude..

ok Jaredster.. a 4X card will run on both a 4X agp mobo and an 8X agp mobo.. similarly and 8X agp card will run on 4X agp mobo and 8X agp mobo.. !

[sushi128]

Originally posted by sushi128
it'll run at the greatest common agp speed (8/4x mobo + 4x card= 4x harmony).

::ahem::

my throat has been cleared.

[Jaredster]

Originally posted by WhoGivesARatsAss
hahaha.. dude..

ok Jaredster.. a 4X card will run on both a 4X agp mobo and an 8X agp mobo.. similarly and 8X agp card will run on 4X agp mobo and 8X agp mobo.. !

\o/ YAY!!! *huggles WGARA* .

:D.

[MrBored]

before you ask, AGP 8x wont perform noticably better than AGP 4x, so if your only reason to upgrade your mobo is for AGP 8x support, dont bother.

[Jaredster]

how do i startup into the bios on Windows XP?

[WhoGivesARatsAss]

u know when u are getting all the crap displayed bfr windows screen.. just hit the delete key.. on some mobos it is also the F2 key.. i think del will work on most all mobos!

[Rhenna]

Let me guess the next question:

"Now that I've royally screwed-up my BIOS, how do I fix it?"

[WhoGivesARatsAss]

set everything to default and stop blamin me (?)

[sushi128]

they let you reset the CMOS for a reason :p

[Bobz0r]

Originally posted by WhoGivesARatsAss
u know when u are getting all the crap displayed bfr windows screen.. just hit the delete key.. on some mobos it is also the F2 key.. i think del will work on most all mobos!

Delete, F1, and F10 are usually the default BIOS keys, just spam em all when you turn your computer on and one should work.