i know this is a stupid question, but what is the difference between a 128mb card and a 256. other than the obvious. i have the ati radeon 9800pro 256mb. is that much better than the 9800pro 128mb?

a radeon 9800 with 128mb is better than a 9600 with 128. The amount of memory in those ranges makes little difference to performance unless your using multi-screen.

You can put 256 on your sig. Well, that and about 300$

256 MBs of RAM will allow your video card to use its power better. Honestly though, with the amount of system RAM these days it seems unnecessary. (At this time...) If you set your aptexture high enough then you can get away with a 128 MB card just fine. However, if you can afford the 256 MB model theres no reason not to go for it.

so basically there is no difference

256: you get better frames when using AA/AF at high resolutions (1280,1600+)

although benchmarks showed that even with AF and FSAA a Rad 9800 Pro 128 is barely a few percentage points behind the Rad 9800 256

i forgot where i read it (i think it was maximum pc)but the only game where 256 makes any noticeable difference performance wise is far cry at high resoloutions.

The reason for having more RAM, is so you don't have to alot your System memory for Graphics!

Meaning the more onboard Vid RAM you have the less you can set your AGP Aperture size to in BIOS!

That's about the whole of it! The isn't a game out that needs more than 128MB of onboard RAM, but Far Cry at high settings will use all of you onboard to run smooth! With any game the higher the settings you use the more RAM that's going to be needed! So if you have a 128MB vidcard you can just set you AGP Aperture size to 128MB assuming that you have enought system RAM to spare and it will perform about the same as a 256MB card at a Aperture setting of 64MB!

Well and also if your buying one of the new cards coming out theres not gonna be a 128mb version for a while.... But anyway ya not to big of a difference but anyway the 9800pro 128 is only 100$ less than the 256. So i say if you have an extra hundred just go with the 256.

No, if you have the extra hundred, wait a month and get a X800 pro...

Is it worth setting your arpeture size to 256? I have 1gb of ram.

anything over 128MB, in my opinion is a waste of system resorces! If you alot AGP Aperture it takes it ways from your system if all you do is game then it won't hurt, but if you edit video or run any CAD programs then i wouldn't go over 128MB!

Kind of depends on your video card also if you have an old 64MB card a setting of 256MB would help tremdously! If you have a 128MB card you won't notice any difference from a setting of 128MB, unless your running everything at Max settings! If you have 256MB card you won't notice any diff at all over a settin of 128MB as an onboard total of 256MB is more than enought to run any game out to date!

Dodge Dakota, your Sig looks great. Looks like you'll be set for a while. Why even ask about a difference between a 128/256? If it's not broke then don't fix it.

my specs are below, my AGP Aperture size is set to 64mb, should I change it to 128 or not?

Of course you want to set it to 128 so you can take full advantage of your video card didnt spend the big bucks to have a slower card.

too bad i couldnt get a custom 9700 Pro with 256MB DDR2.

what kind of performance differences will i see if i change it to 128?

The only thing I can say is I saw a large difference between a 256MB Geforce FX5900 and a 128MB in Far Cry and alittle in UT2004 Onslaught game mode. Besides that I didn't see any. 256MB will be better for new games I.E. Stalker, HL2, Doom III, and the games proceding them. But for now, if you're working with a tight budget a 128MB will do you just fine. I have noticed the 256MB Radeon 9600XT costs only $20 more than the 128MB, so if you NEED a 256MB video card, that'd be the way to go.