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First post, by MrEWhite

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I have a GA-6VTXE motherboard and in the BIOS there is a "Top Performance" option in the RAM timings. I enabled this and got a 70 FPS boost in Quake under 320x200 with my Pentium III Tualatin 1.4 GHz! Can someone explain what this does if they have this board as there are no visible changes in the BIOS after enabling this.

Reply 1 of 7, by clueless1

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My guess is it just sets the memory timings more aggressively but doesn't show you what those timings are?

What percent increase is that 70 fps jump?

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Reply 2 of 7, by MrEWhite

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clueless1 wrote:

My guess is it just sets the memory timings more aggressively but doesn't show you what those timings are?

What percent increase is that 70 fps jump?

28% FPS jump from 180 to 250. It would be great if this board had a bios where you could set the memory timings 😜
And right now I don't even have a good graphics card in the machine for this time era, I'm using a PCI ET6000 right now.

Reply 3 of 7, by jesolo

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I have one or two boards as well that has that option in the BIOS.
To quote what Gigabyte responded to about the Top Performance option in a review of their GA-7VAXP motherboard:
"Essentially, Top Performance optimizes the memory controller in the North Bridge for the best performance possible but at a stable enough state. So enabling Top Performance doesn't change any memory or frequency settings, it simply speeds up the internal timings of the memory controller."

However, do not be surprised if your suddenly get "blue screens" or intermittent crashes. On some motherboards (that I've worked with), it can lead to instability.
On my GA-7VAX motherboard (which is very similar to the board in the above mentioned review), I never had a problem with the Top Performance option enabled and there was a noticeable performance improvement as well.

I guess it comes down to the individual configuration you have (more likely, what type and brand of memory is installed).

PS: If the BIOS doesn't display the Advanced Chipset Features option, try holding in the CTRL key and pressing F1. That should bring up the option.

Reply 4 of 7, by MrEWhite

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jesolo wrote:

PS: If the BIOS doesn't display the Advanced Chipset Features option, try holding in the CTRL key and pressing F1. That should bring up the option.

Doesn't work sadly.

Reply 5 of 7, by leileilol

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Maybe it enables write combining. Check if you get the same boost when you turn that "performance" off and run Fastvid before Quake

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Reply 6 of 7, by MrEWhite

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leileilol wrote:

Maybe it enables write combining. Check if you get the same boost when you turn that "performance" off and run Fastvid before Quake

Yeah, I don't get the same boost with just fastvid.

Reply 7 of 7, by Standard Def Steve

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It probably enables memory interleaving, which helps VIA memory performance quite a bit.

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