Stupid BIOS problems

[Shuzer]

Okay, here's the deal. I've been playing the FC demo lately, and getting pretty low performance (I've read on the FC forums people getting 45FPS average on my system with max detail), so I decide to reinstall the FC demo (mainly because it was taking longer to load, plus I had a whole lot of user mods).

Upon reinstalling the FC demo, I noticed at the very end it said "The FarCry demo was successfully installed! However, your AGP aperture size is set too low. This may affect your performance, please set it to 64MB or higher." I say "okay, great, I know how to do that!" I jump into my BIOS, and, to my surprise, 32MB is the highest it'll go. I decide I'll flash the latest BIOS.

I DL them, flash (latest A7V8X-X BIOS), yay, AGP aperture list is there, so I set it to 128MB. As I'm waiting for it to boot, I get an error "\windows\system.ini is corrupt, you may want to try repairing your XP installation." Now, I've had this happen to me before, the last time I tried to update my BIOS, this time I figured it was my boot manager, so I removed that, to no avail. The odd part is, I can downgrade my BIOS to earlier versions with no trouble, but if I try to update them to the latest set, I get corruption boot errors.

Anyone know how to fix this? Or, does anyone know if a previous revision of my BIOS will let me properly set the AGP aperture size (I checked the manual, 64MB+ is listed, so I assume the stock BIOS would have let me change the aperture size)? I want to test the aperture size differences, maybe that's the missing link alot of people are looking for. Some people are getting bad FPS in the FC demo, while others (with similar systems) are getting alot better.
This also stems past just the aperture settings, I want to be able to update my BIOS again, without errors.
Any help would be appreciated

Mobo/processor (for those who are wondering):
Asus A7V8X-X
AMD Athlon XP 2500+

 

[Jammydodger]

My exp with updating your bios is dont bother unless u have 2.
had 2 get a new mothboard the other week because i update the bios grrr :flame:

Shuzer sorry m8 dont know, but the far cry demo is very demanding when you have some of the setings on high, just turn them down a bit

 

[Shuzer]

My exp with updating your bios is dont bother unless u have 2.
had 2 get a new mothboard the other week because i update the bios grrr :flame:

Shuzer sorry m8 dont know, but the far cry demo is very demanding when you have some of the setings on high, just turn them down a bit

Like I said, I've updated my BIOS in the past, but my BIOS refuse to flash to the newest set. I can't change my aperture size anywhere past 32MB, and I wanted to test 64MB or higher. My manual shows all the aperture choices with the stock BIOS, so I may just revert down a few BIOS revisions in order to have the feature.

Anyhow, it's not so much that FarCry doesn't run all too well, my system runs it alright at max everything, it's just I've read people with similar systems getting anywhere from 10-15 FPS higher than me. Then I see that aperture message after the install, so I wanted to give it a go.

Still, if anyone can help me solve my unupdatable BIOS issue, I'd be greatly appreciative. Thanks

 

[Shuzer]

I think I'm gonna be giving up on the BIOS issue. My system runs fine as is, it's just a little annoying that I can't update. I tried many different things to get the BIOS update to work, but it all ended the same way.. it telling me C:\Windows\system\ was corrupted.

Is it at all possible that 32MB aperture is lowering performance in games in general, though? Anyone? I'd like to know..

 

[theGreenBunny]

Well, the FC demo install also gave me that message. So I checked the bios, but it was set to 128. No performance problems either. So I don't trust that auto-system-specs-detection thing.

For the performance gains/losses, check this benchmark.

Haven't found anything about the corruption thing, you could try googling on (part of) the exact error message.

 

[Shuzer]

Well, the FC demo install also gave me that message. So I checked the bios, but it was set to 128. No performance problems either. So I don't trust that auto-system-specs-detection thing.

For the performance gains/losses, check this benchmark.

Haven't found anything about the corruption thing, you could try googling on (part of) the exact error message.

Thanks. Looks like it has no real effect on games, only benchmarks. Still, wish I could try it.

As for the auto-detection thing, that sounds funky, but, my aperture IS set to 32MB, there's only 3 options in the BIOS: 8MB, 16MB, 32MB. The manual says it should go up to 1024MB, but, I only see those options when I update BIOS, which roots back to my corruption problems.

I'm having my friend test with his setup, which is nearly the same as mine, so I'll see if it even matters.

 

[Meteor_of_War]

Just a little side note about AGP aperture size... "AGP Aperature Size" determines the maximum amount of system RAM that can be allocated to the graphics card for texture storage.....its not how much of the video card's 'own' memory is used.

If your graphics card has very little graphics memory, then you should set as large an AGP aperture as you can, up to half the system RAM. For cards with more graphics memory, you shouldn't set the aperture size to half the system RAM. Also, the size of the aperture does not correspond to performance so increasing it to large proportions will not improve performance.

 

[Shuzer]

I know this Meteor, thanks anyway.

Anyhow, I just checked with my friend who has the same motherboard, processor and BIOS revision. He's able to change his aperture. When I update my BIOS, I'm able to change it, but I get the message I mentioned above.

Is it possible my RAM is unable to set an aperture higher than 32? This would seem to be the only logical conclusion I can arrive at.

As for Aperture not affecting performance, that's untrue. The more RAM that games have to allocate to texture processing the faster a game can run. My friend tested the FC demo at different aperture settings, and sure enough, from 64MB to 512MB settings he saw a 10FPS difference.

 

[Meteor_of_War]

As for Aperture not affecting performance, that's untrue. The more RAM that games have to allocate to texture processing the faster a game can run. My friend tested the FC demo at different aperture settings, and sure enough, from 64MB to 512MB settings he saw a 10FPS difference.

Hmm...well that would go against everything i've read about AGP aperture size but who knows.

 

[Shuzer]

Hmm...well that would go against everything i've read about AGP aperture size but who knows.

Or maybe he was insane. Either way, I'd like to know why I can't set my aperture higher than 32MB (regardless if it does or doesn't help with performance), and updating my BIOS causes XP not to boot.

 

[staddydaddy]

As for Aperture not affecting performance, that's untrue. The more RAM that games have to allocate to texture processing the faster a game can run. My friend tested the FC demo at different aperture settings, and sure enough, from 64MB to 512MB settings he saw a 10FPS difference.

It all depends on how much GPU ram the game needs. If you had a card with 64mb of ram and a game needed 128 mb then having a larger aperature. but if you have a card with 128mb and the game only needed less than 100% of that ram then having a larger aperature wouldn't matter.

 

[Shuzer]

It all depends on how much GPU ram the game needs. If you had a card with 64mb of ram and a game needed 128 mb then having a larger aperature. but if you have a card with 128mb and the game only needed less than 100% of that ram then having a larger aperature wouldn't matter.

Makes sense.

Again, does anyone know if my RAM could be at fault for only letting me have a 32MB aperture?

 

[oD1Nz]

How much RAM do you have? The BIOS might have a failsafe in it that only allows a certain percentage of RAM to be used for the Aperture.

 

[Shuzer]

There we go. I have 512MB, and the latest BIOS revision lets me set the aperture.

I tried again, for the 30th time, this time I decided to try something random to maybe get it to boot. I upped my FSB by 1MHz, and it booted. No idea why, but I'll take it.

So, thanks for the help, my problem has been fixed