Overclock your Video Card

This is a method of increasing video system performance, but it is meant for the more advanced user. Video cards contain a processor, just like your PC. Just as the main PC processor can be overclocked, the video processor can be overclocked. And the same basic concerns apply. While there are tweaks that can be done in your CMOS to aid in video performance (these will be addressed next), the video processor itself cannot be overclocked from here. The easiest and most common way to overclock the video processor is through the use of an external application which runs under Windows. There are a number of such applications out there, many specially designed for the particular video card. Some of these are released directly by the video card manufacturer. Some video drivers themselves have the ability to overclock the processor. In these cases, you can find your way through all of the tabs on your graphics display settings and find it. Usually, clicking on “Advanced” in the display properties window will bring up another window with more specific settings for your particular card.

It should be noted that, just like overclocking the main processor, voltage and cooling are things that must be considered when overclocking a video processor. In some cases, increasing the voltage to the video core will help with stability in an overclocked situation. AGP voltage is usually controllable via the motherboard CMOS. Increasing voltage also increases the heat produced by the processor, which leads into the inevitable cooling situation. Many high-end video cards have fairly powerful heat sinks and fans on their video processors. So, in many cases, you can overclock the video processor and the fan will be able to accomodate the extra heat.

Tweak Your BIOS Settings

There are a few settings in your BIOS which you can manipulate to affect the performance of your video card. I will address BIOS in more detail in the BIOS section, but let me address a few specifically here:

AGP Aperature Size
This is a measure of the amount of your main system memory (measured in MB) is available to your AGP video card for serving its memory needs. Obviously, this needs to be set correctly so as not to harm performance. After all, allowing too little memory for AGP may mean that your video card does not have enough memory to store complex textures. Setting it too high can either have no effect (if you have lots of system RAM to spare) or have a negative effect if your video card takes too much memory to itself, while not leaving enough for other software running in your PC.

The AGP Aperature Size your choose depends on the amount of system memory you have. Obviously, you can’t tell the AGP to use memory that is not there. Also, do not err in setting AAS to low. For example, setting it to 16 MB (which is ultra low) can lead to problems. Generally, if you have 256 MB of RAM or less, set your AAS to around 1/2 of this, 128 MB. You can go as low as 64 MB if you want. If you have over 256 MB of RAM, set your AAS to about 1/3 of the total RAM in your system.

AGP Mode

This is just to set your AGP to 1X, 2X, 4X or 8X (if your board support this). Set this to the maximum your video card is buitl to support. There have been a few known issues regarding AGP modes with certain GeForce-based cards and Via chipsets. There are some ways to fix this problem, including certain hacks to the registry. Search the net for the issue.

AGP Voltage

Using this setting, you can increase the voltage to the video procesor core to aid in overclocking (discussed above).