Shared memory?

[Dr Nick]

Anyone know anything about shared memory?
Any links or anything would help!

[Phopojijo]

... in what context? That's a VERY open-ended question.

[Dr Nick]

okay, ummm....

My friend has over 1 GB og vram, because he's sharing about 750MB of ram. Can I do something like this?

[Amit]

Hmm. Maybe he has a motherboard with Intel GMA X3000 graphics, you can have 256mb shared video memory. Is it that he has 750MB left over and 250MB is being used for video purposes?

[Dr Nick]

I don't think so. He sent me his DxDiag text file.


---------------
Display Devices
---------------
Card name: ATI Mobility Radeon X1700
Chip type: ATI Mobility Radeon X1700 (0x71D5)
DAC type: Internal DAC(400MHz)
Display Memory: 1278 MB
Dedicated Memory: 510 MB
Shared Memory: 767 MB

Tell me if you need any other info.

[Amit]

I don't think so. He sent me his DxDiag text file.


---------------
Display Devices
---------------
Card name: ATI Mobility Radeon X1700
Chip type: ATI Mobility Radeon X1700 (0x71D5)
DAC type: Internal DAC(400MHz)
Display Memory: 1278 MB
Dedicated Memory: 510 MB
Shared Memory: 767 MB

Tell me if you need any other info.

Hmm, that's quite confusing. This it what I got on my X1600PRO:

---------------
Display Devices
---------------
Card name: Radeon X1600 Series (Microsoft Corporation - WDDM)
Manufacturer: ATI Technologies Inc.
Chip type:
DAC type: Internal DAC(400MHz)
Display Memory: 510 MB
Dedicated Memory: 254 MB
Shared Memory: 255 MB

System Memory: 1024MB

So apparently, he has 512MB of dedicated video memory on the card itself. The computer will also use 767MB of system memory to make a total of around 1278mb of video memory. What we need to know now is how much system memory does your friend have? It would probably be 2GB since I doubt the system would allow 768MB of RAM to be diverted to video purposes if there was only 1GB of RAM in the laptop altogether.

[Dr Nick]

Yeah, it is.

[Amit]

I would say that his video card is using another 768MB of RAM is because the card itself isn't powerful enough to run some applications, which is probably where you get slowdowns. I'm not sure about this but maybe the system detects that he has enough RAM to add another 768MB to the video memory so he can have great performance and still have enough to adequately run his laptop fast.

To answer your initial question, I think your best bet for doing that is getting the same laptop. You see, you might as well buy a video card that can handle the stress without taking RAM from your PC. I assume you're using a desktop pc?

[Dr Nick]

Yep.

[InnerGoat]

This is a "feature" in Vista.

[Amit]

Which "feature" is it? Does it do this automatically? I never had the impression that I was sharing my memory wit my Video card. I would gladly give up more resources to the videocard if i get another stick of RAM.

[InnerGoat]

Not sure. Don't quote me on this, but apparently it just stores textures in system memory if you happen to fill up the card's onboard memory. Its not taking up all that system memory unless it actually needs it though, so you don't need to get more RAM just for it.

[Amit]

It sorta sounds like it makes sense.

[Dr Nick]

So, if your video card doesn't have much memory, but you've got a lot of system memory, Vista will automatically use some of the system memory as video memory? Could I do this to play videogames?

[InnerGoat]

It would use the system memory on its own if it needed it, I assume. Maybe the game has to support it, but i'm not sure.

[Atty]

Yeah, that would work, until games start using a full 2GB/4GB and Windows fucks itself because it can't use the memory to store textures, sup BSOD.

[Dr Nick]

But by then, the 8GB ram chips will be less expensive and the general public will be able to sue them! Either way, I've had Vista for about 2 months now, and I've already seen the BSoD...