I'm having trouble configuring my AGP card with the BIOS? What do the BIOS settings related to AGP mean?

Below is a table of recommended BIOS settings.

BIOS Recommendations

AGP Window
- Other names: Texture Range, Graphics Window
- Description: The max amount of system memory utilized for AGP texturing
- Recommendation: 1/2 the amount of system memory
- Note: Setting lower than 32mb could disable AGP tranfers completely

AGP Transfer Rate
- Other names: AGP Select, Graphics Speed
- Description: The speed the of the AGP bus
- Recommendation: Maximum possible setting, usually AGP 4x
- Note: May need to lower for stability with older chipsets

AGP Sidebanding
- Other names: Sideband Transfers
- Description: Allows for additional data during AGP transfers
- Recommendation: Enable
- Note: Some early VIA chipsets may not properly support SBA

AGP FastWrites
- Other names: Processor to Graphics Bypass
- Description: Allows cpu to write directly to video for improved perfomance
- Recommendation: Disable
- Note: ATI chipsets do not support FW technology

Video BIOS Cache
- Other names: Video Buffer, Graphic Caching
- Description: Buffers graphics operations to the processor cache
- Recommendation: Disable
- Note: Not required for Windows environments

Video BIOS Shadow
- Other names: Graphics Buffer
- Description: Copies video BIOS to local memory
- Recommendation: Disable
- Note: ATI video BIOS already performs this operation

It is also recommended to install the latest motherboard chipset drivers
where applicable. This is extremely important for VIA chipset users, as
Microsoft provides rather poor support for the VIA AGP interface with the
base Windows installation. Most motherboards are built atop a chipset from
one of these companies:


Intel Corporation

VIA Technologies

Silicon Integrated Systems

Acer Laboratories