Tweaking a GeForce 5200FX

[EHM-1199 Philip]

I have been advised by a colleague that my GeForce 5200FX 256Mb card should be more impressive than I feel it is at present.
Pointers I have been given include:
- Go into Bios settings and make sure AGP port is set to 8X
- Go into Bios and check the AGP aperture size is set to at least the size of the card if not higher, suggest 300Mb at first
- Download and install Direct X 9.1 drivers
- Download and install detonator drivers from Nvidia for big jump in performance

Having not long unwrapped my lovely new PC from the box I am slightly concerned about tweaking something that messes stuff up. What do you folks think about the advice I have been given? Should I make these changes and will the increase in performance be worthwhile?

[EHM-0654 Murray]

Originally posted by Plymyphil
I have been advised by a colleague that my GeForce 5200FX 256Mb card should be more impressive than I feel it is at present.
Pointers I have been given include:
- Go into Bios settings and make sure AGP port is set to 8X
- Go into Bios and check the AGP aperture size is set to at least the size of the card if not higher, suggest 300Mb at first
- Download and install Direct X 9.1 drivers
- Download and install detonator drivers from Nvidia for big jump in performance

Having not long unwrapped my lovely new PC from the box I am slightly concerned about tweaking something that messes stuff up. What do you folks think about the advice I have been given? Should I make these changes and will the increase in performance be worthwhile?

I agree with all of that. The BIOS settings (AGP multiplier and aperture size) will have little discernable effect (and yes, you'll want the aperture to be as big as the cards memory), upgrading to the latest DX (9.0b on my home system) is always a good idea, and the latest detonators from nVidia are a requirement if you want performance.

Congratulate whoever gave you that advice, I'd say it's spot on.

[EHM-0813 Guillermo]

I'm getting the card too next week I can finally install FS2004 now

[EHM-1199 Philip]

Thanks for the vote of confidence in the advice Murray. I'm currentloy on FS2k2. If I have P4 3.2 and the video card mentioned would it be wroth going up to Fs2k4?

[EHM-0962 Zhen Yi]

Yes it would definitely be worth upgrading to FS2004. you'll getting better waters, better clouds, better atc and best of all no lag at all since you have such a powerful computer!

[EHM-1199 Philip]

If I upgrade to FS2K4 will the install recognise all my scenery and the presence of FS2K2 and do an upgrade or will I need to take everything off and put it all back again?

[EHM-0654 Murray]

Originally posted by EHM-0962
Yes it would definitely be worth upgrading to FS2004. you'll getting better waters, better clouds, better atc and best of all no lag at all since you have such a powerful computer!

I agree. It's well worth upgrading, the new weather system alone makes it worth the effort.

Originally posted by Plymyphil
If I upgrade to FS2K4 will the install recognise all my scenery and the presence of FS2K2 and do an upgrade or will I need to take everything off and put it all back again?

Unfortunately, you are looking at a fresh install (you probably won't need to uninstall fs2K2 first though, unless you're low on drive space) but to be honest, unless you're flying online, I'd say try a default FS2K4 install before dumping extra scenery on it, much of which is currently incompatible. It looks a lot better than FS2K2. (And top news, the UK VFR scenery packages from TopFlight do work in FS2K4)

[EHM-0962 Zhen Yi]

you'll have to check with the developers of your add on products to see if they are compatible for FS2004 and maybe get patches for them if they are avaliable.....overall i don't think it shoudl be too much of a problem except for a select few products that aren't being supported anymore

[EHM-0079 Simão]

Originally posted by Plymyphil
- Go into Bios and check the AGP aperture size is set to at least the size of the card if not higher, suggest 300Mb at first

This suggestion appears to me a bit unussual... if you card just have 256 Mb, changing AGP aperture to 300 Mb what benefits do you take? Improves anything??
And the change to 300 it´s impossible, at least, with Asus Bios, becouse options are just  64,128,256 or 512.
Safe landings,

Simão Oliveira
Euroholidays Manager

[EHM-1199 Philip]

The change to 300Mb was what was suggested as a starting point. I was told to change to at least the size of the card and greater if possible up to a multiple of 1.5 X size of card. I eneded up not being able to go higher than value of card and hence have the AGp aperture set to 256Mb. This, and the AGPx were both set to 'auto' before I changed them. Has it made a difference? Difficult to tell, I think it has combined with the installation of the latest direct x and the detonator driver. Very happy witht he end system anyway.

[EHM-0654 Murray]

Originally posted by Turista
This suggestion appears to me a bit unussual... if you card just have 256 Mb, changing AGP aperture to 300 Mb what benefits do you take? Improves anything??
And the change to 300 it´s impossible, at least, with Asus Bios, becouse options are just  64,128,256 or 512.
Safe landings,

Simão Oliveira
Euroholidays Manager

It's rare to see a BIOS that will allow you to set the AGP Aperture to anything other than a power of 2.

The AGP aperture is the maximum size of data transfer that the CPU will attempt to page between main memory and the AGP card as a single read/write operation, so setting it greater than the amount of GMem would be useless. Most of the benchmarks I have seen for older cards (pre-GeForceFX) didn't see any difference in speed between the various Aperture settings; suggestive, perhaps, of manufacturer smoke and mirrors yet again.