How much system RAM to make available to the graphics card?
 

This is kind of piggy-backing off of my other post about which card to
buy, but the other post was getting too long.

I have a P4/3.2 Ghz with 1 Gig of RAM. My graphics card (GeForce 3)
has 64 MB of RAM on it. I currently have my BIOS set to make an
additional 128 MB of system RAM available for texture storage. With
1024 MB of total RAM, would I be better off allocating more main RAM
for texture storage, or is 128 MB the right amount? I'm running
Windows XP Home.

I thought I remembered an old "rule-of-thumb" that said you should
allocate twice as much system RAM for texture storage as the video
card itself has. So, for my 64 MB GeForce, I set the BIOS to provide
an additional 128 MB. Is this still a good ratio, or have things
changed? It seems like video card RAM is getting larger more quickly
than system RAM as time goes by, so I didn't know if the "conventional
wisdom" still held true.

Thanks,
Scott Gardner

Re: How much system RAM to make available to the graphics card?
 

I doubt it makes mush difference but the best way is to benchmark the video
card with the different settings and see which one your system likes. I use
Mad Onion 3D Mark 2001SE. You can expect no big increase in performance when
you get the cache optimized.



"Scott Gardner" <gardners14@cox.net> wrote in message
news:cugfa05h0993mdrl4u8occ98hgfjvp5mig@4ax.com...
> This is kind of piggy-backing off of my other post about which card to
> buy, but the other post was getting too long.
>
> I have a P4/3.2 Ghz with 1 Gig of RAM. My graphics card (GeForce 3)
> has 64 MB of RAM on it. I currently have my BIOS set to make an
> additional 128 MB of system RAM available for texture storage. With
> 1024 MB of total RAM, would I be better off allocating more main RAM
> for texture storage, or is 128 MB the right amount? I'm running
> Windows XP Home.
>
> I thought I remembered an old "rule-of-thumb" that said you should
> allocate twice as much system RAM for texture storage as the video
> card itself has. So, for my 64 MB GeForce, I set the BIOS to provide
> an additional 128 MB. Is this still a good ratio, or have things
> changed? It seems like video card RAM is getting larger more quickly
> than system RAM as time goes by, so I didn't know if the "conventional
> wisdom" still held true.
>
> Thanks,
> Scott Gardner
>

Re: How much system RAM to make available to the graphics card?
 

You were right - it didn't make much of a difference. I adjusted the
texture cache size from 128 MB to 256, and my 3DMark score didn't
change a bit. I also adjusted the ABIT IC7-MAX 3 BIOS "Game
Enhancement" settings from "Auto" to "Turbo" to "Street Racer", and
those changes didn't make a significant difference either.

Overclocking the CPU didn't seem to matter, either. My CPU is a 2.8
GHz, but I've been running it at 3.2 Ghz since I bought it. Going
back to 2.8 Ghz left the 3DMark score unchanged as well.

I think my graphics card is so far behind the rest of my system,
performance-wise, that the tweaking had no real effect.

I hadn't realized how "behind the times" my graphics card was until I
submitted my results to 3DMark. Of the 2 million submissions using
3DMark 2003, there were only *ten* other systems that had a GeForce 3
card in a Pentium 4 Computer. Mine was faster than all but one of
them, but most of them had 1.4 or 1.6 Mhz CPUs. The one system that
was faster had overclocked the GeForce 3 card from 200 Mhz to 246.
I'm not going to mess around with overclocking my video card - at this
point it would just be putting lipstick on a pig. I'll just wait a
month or two and replace it altogether.

Thanks again for the help.

Scott Gardner

On Sun, 16 May 2004 20:20:45 GMT, "Michael-NC"
<NoAddress@desolate.com> wrote:

>I doubt it makes mush difference but the best way is to benchmark the video
>card with the different settings and see which one your system likes. I use
>Mad Onion 3D Mark 2001SE. You can expect no big increase in performance when
>you get the cache optimized.
>
>
>
>"Scott Gardner" <gardners14@cox.net> wrote in message
>news:cugfa05h0993mdrl4u8occ98hgfjvp5mig@4ax.com.. .
>> This is kind of piggy-backing off of my other post about which card to
>> buy, but the other post was getting too long.
>>
>> I have a P4/3.2 Ghz with 1 Gig of RAM. My graphics card (GeForce 3)
>> has 64 MB of RAM on it. I currently have my BIOS set to make an
>> additional 128 MB of system RAM available for texture storage. With
>> 1024 MB of total RAM, would I be better off allocating more main RAM
>> for texture storage, or is 128 MB the right amount? I'm running
>> Windows XP Home.
>>
>> I thought I remembered an old "rule-of-thumb" that said you should
>> allocate twice as much system RAM for texture storage as the video
>> card itself has. So, for my 64 MB GeForce, I set the BIOS to provide
>> an additional 128 MB. Is this still a good ratio, or have things
>> changed? It seems like video card RAM is getting larger more quickly
>> than system RAM as time goes by, so I didn't know if the "conventional
>> wisdom" still held true.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Scott Gardner
>>

Re: How much system RAM to make available to the graphics card?
 

Yeah, that's a valuable lesson. Screwing with your video card's timing's on
less than a dedicated gaming system can only bring you grief. The
performance gains are not worth it, IMO.

"Scott Gardner" <gardners14@cox.net> wrote in message
news:mmufa0ds183395v50qu2jk4kvuc6va0imr@4ax.com...
> You were right - it didn't make much of a difference. I adjusted the
> texture cache size from 128 MB to 256, and my 3DMark score didn't
> change a bit. I also adjusted the ABIT IC7-MAX 3 BIOS "Game
> Enhancement" settings from "Auto" to "Turbo" to "Street Racer", and
> those changes didn't make a significant difference either.
>
> Overclocking the CPU didn't seem to matter, either. My CPU is a 2.8
> GHz, but I've been running it at 3.2 Ghz since I bought it. Going
> back to 2.8 Ghz left the 3DMark score unchanged as well.
>
> I think my graphics card is so far behind the rest of my system,
> performance-wise, that the tweaking had no real effect.
>
> I hadn't realized how "behind the times" my graphics card was until I
> submitted my results to 3DMark. Of the 2 million submissions using
> 3DMark 2003, there were only *ten* other systems that had a GeForce 3
> card in a Pentium 4 Computer. Mine was faster than all but one of
> them, but most of them had 1.4 or 1.6 Mhz CPUs. The one system that
> was faster had overclocked the GeForce 3 card from 200 Mhz to 246.
> I'm not going to mess around with overclocking my video card - at this
> point it would just be putting lipstick on a pig. I'll just wait a
> month or two and replace it altogether.
>
> Thanks again for the help.
>
> Scott Gardner
>
> On Sun, 16 May 2004 20:20:45 GMT, "Michael-NC"
> <NoAddress@desolate.com> wrote:
>
> >I doubt it makes mush difference but the best way is to benchmark the
video
> >card with the different settings and see which one your system likes. I
use
> >Mad Onion 3D Mark 2001SE. You can expect no big increase in performance
when
> >you get the cache optimized.
> >
> >
> >
> >"Scott Gardner" <gardners14@cox.net> wrote in message
> >news:cugfa05h0993mdrl4u8occ98hgfjvp5mig@4ax.com.. .
> >> This is kind of piggy-backing off of my other post about which card to
> >> buy, but the other post was getting too long.
> >>
> >> I have a P4/3.2 Ghz with 1 Gig of RAM. My graphics card (GeForce 3)
> >> has 64 MB of RAM on it. I currently have my BIOS set to make an
> >> additional 128 MB of system RAM available for texture storage. With
> >> 1024 MB of total RAM, would I be better off allocating more main RAM
> >> for texture storage, or is 128 MB the right amount? I'm running
> >> Windows XP Home.
> >>
> >> I thought I remembered an old "rule-of-thumb" that said you should
> >> allocate twice as much system RAM for texture storage as the video
> >> card itself has. So, for my 64 MB GeForce, I set the BIOS to provide
> >> an additional 128 MB. Is this still a good ratio, or have things
> >> changed? It seems like video card RAM is getting larger more quickly
> >> than system RAM as time goes by, so I didn't know if the "conventional
> >> wisdom" still held true.
> >>
> >> Thanks,
> >> Scott Gardner
> >>
>