Vid Card problems

[Balls]

All,
Got hooked on AH1 and flew for a few months and am now trying to make the conversion to AH2.  I'm sure many of you would recognize my six in your windscreen

Here is my problem:  
I have a 128m ATI Radeon vid card.  When I check stats, I'm never utilizing more than about a third of the vid memory.  I've updated all the drivers including bios drivers with little effect.  My bios seems to be crippled so I cant get into the bios and alter vid settings.  How can I change this so my vid mem is better utilized?I here alot of talk about this, so I think this may be a common problem.  Can anyone help?

[clouds]

Hi,
same problem here but with an ATI Radeon 9600 pro 256 Mb.

Max Vid mem used 70Mb with almost all the settings to max.

Anyway I've found the Catalyst driver 4.3 are better perfoming  than the new 4.6

[XtrmeJ]

There are no problems here. Useing less memory then you have is actually a good thing. When you are using 128 MB of 128MB video card, means your card is working a bit hard, and you will probably have a video card fart, in which case you will crash to desktop (CTD). Don't worry guys, it is not a problem.

[clouds]

Oh yeah but......I only say, what may I do of all this Vid Mem (128 or 256Mb) when only 20 or 30% of that memory is used ?

Vid Mem is there to be used not only to become ballast.

[fuzeman]

When you drive your car do you always have the gas pedal pushed down all the way and floored? I hope not and you only use what gas is needed. Same thing with memory, you only use what's needed. If the game used all available memory and just one tiny texture was added, then what happens? A problem. If your current games played used all your memory you'd need a new card when something comes out that needs just a little more.

And besides, don't they say we only use 10% of our brain?
I'm being safe and limiting myself to useing only 5%.

[Darkish]

What settings are you two running for texture size?  If you wish to use more of your card's memory try increasing this.  i.e. going from 256 to 1024 will use 4 times as much memory.

p.s.  Balls - holding down delete key at startup has no effect? (re your bios)

[clouds]

Hehehe sry fuze but your affirmation pull me out this amusing other one:.....if you bang a bullet in you head you don't have to use neither 5% of your brain afther .

What I'm saying is: I've bought a VC having 256Mb to use only 5% of it.......that's a very good money management expecially thinking about my previous ATI Rad 7200 that was using almost 90% of its 64mb vid ram and was running almost as my new 9600 pro does......GULP:p

Regarding of my car, well.....I usually push the pedal to the floor  almost all the time having a feedback of almost 35Mph in city (LOL I have a 750cc lill car) and usually I dont take out of garage the Ferrari (....because I don't have it....) to buy a cocacola

Unfortunately you can't change your VC everytime you use an application needing more or less performances but, you hope to use your hardware over the 50% of its performances to think your moneys were well spent.

Anyway your is an honest opinion ad I respect it.

P.S.: (....a pilot thinking....) if I use only 5% of my brain and I'm a good pilot, then I could leave the remaining 95% on the ground because it's only sorta ballast and reduces my flying performances increasing my wingload

[fuzeman]

Glad you took it with humor, that's the way it was given.
As someone mentioned, you can try using a larger texture size to use more memory but the game does need some space to work with. If you are using 99% of your video memory you can get a lower frame rate or CTDs.
Increase it one setting at a time, from the introductory screen and not in the game, and see how it performs. You could also try using higher resolutions too.

[Balls]

OK, understand that you don't want to max out your cards.  But my next question would be:  If I'm not working my vid card very hard, then why do I suffer poor frame rates during large furballs.  I have a P42.4 and a Gig a RAM.  Any suggestions for improving my performance.

BTW, my BIOS seems to be dumbed down.  When I hit delete and get into it, only very basic options are available and I'm unable to alter vid settings.

[fuzeman]

For video tweaking there are a number of utility programs you can use. To overclock or adjust a video card I use PowerStrip.
http://www.download.com/3120-20-0.html?qt=Powerstrip&tg=dl-2001
Be careful because to much O/Cing can be bad or even BAD.

You can lower the 'detail' sliders so less important things aren't as detailed, these are trees, ground features, etc. They will not efect plane or vehicle detail, as far as I know.
Try lowering resolution or texture size.

My opinion here, what boosts memory usage will lower your frame rate and less memory used will give higher frame rate.

The BIOS is the nuts and bolts and if you cant access it you are somewhat limited.