Windows XP Memory question..

[LouSiffer]

I keep getting conflicting stories about my inquiry from very knowledgeable people. I seen two MS certified techs about get in a fist fight over it. Nerds in a fist fight...let the windmills begin.. So here it is:

Windows XP Pro has a capacity to use 4GB of Ram. The issue at question is: Does the RAM on the MB share with the memory on the video card?

What I am getting at is if I use 4 GB of ram and 1 GB video card, will it dump a gig of MB ram to compensate to stay below the 4GB capacity or is this completely untrue?-Lou

[CharvelRocker]

I am not an expert, but I always thought they were separate as the video card uses it's onboard RAM for it's applications (ie making the pretty pictures on your PC), and given they are now listed as separate on a lot of boxes for games, I assume XP handles htem on a separate basis. If it did, I would probably not have to use my 360 for gaming...

[sixx_ gunner]

Motherboard RAM is used for application processing/switching.
Video RAM is used for rendering what your seeing.
Am only a home schooled computer nerd who builds them for extra $...

[GWARGHOUL]

Shared video is mostly an on-board application of RAM used in laptops and desktops that have on-board video.

4 gigs is the correct max for 32 XP end user versions.

Your video card ram does not function as system ram, and in now way shape or form will any of the two seperate entities allocate for each other. Not set up that way for DMA.

To answer your question, that is untrue in conventional form.It can be true in the laptop or on-board video scenario.

[Nuclear Vampire]

If you have a separate video card with its own memory, then it won't use any RAM from the MB.

[thebigz]

You have it exactly right. 4GB Total, including video card and anything else with RAM. You can read what Microsoft itself says about it.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929605

[LouSiffer]

You have it exactly right. 4GB Total, including video card and anything else with RAM. You can read what Microsoft itself says about it.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929605

Thats for Windows Vista. This is XP Pro.

[GWARGHOUL]

WOW. Windows sucks. Even without shared memory, and totally separate IRQ, DMA and medium- the os will still count your video card's own dedicated ram as residential in the os, even tho it doesn't access it that way.

[GWARGHOUL]

Motherboard RAM is used for application processing/switching.
Video RAM is used for rendering what your seeing.
Am only a home schooled computer nerd who builds them for extra $...

No processing takes place in the RAM. You need to study how processors actually work, ram, and dma, irq and some motherboard technical fundamentals.. I'm a bit rusty myself now, and might even review my A+ book, because this topic has triggered the WTF part of my brain.

[GWARGHOUL]

So Lou, I guess basically the ram does not get shared, but is in fact taken into account in the mapping of total system ram.

I've always had a habit in Windows of making the page file or virtual memory exactly the same size as my RAM.

[Carbuff]

Ive seen separate pcie video cards for sale that have a fixed amount of ram on the card but have some kind of gimmick that they can use the ram on your system board to up the video ram. I seem to recall that they might have been nvidia cards. I forget what the fancy term for this gimmick was. Also, I recall that vista will just use up all your extra ram and load it up with stuff that it thinks you use alot, superfetch, I think its called. It will keep your harddrive running for half an hour each time you boot up. Annoying, stick with xp.

[LouSiffer]

[QUOTE=Carbuff;1140760]Ive seen separate pcie video cards for sale that have a fixed amount of ram on the card but have some kind of gimmick that they can use the ram on your system board to up the video ram. I seem to recall that they might have been nvidia cards. I forget what the fancy term for this gimmick was. QUOTE]

Thats what they refer to as SLI Hybrid.

[Carbuff]

[QUOTE=LouSiffer;1140761]

Ive seen separate pcie video cards for sale that have a fixed amount of ram on the card but have some kind of gimmick that they can use the ram on your system board to up the video ram. I seem to recall that they might have been nvidia cards. I forget what the fancy term for this gimmick was. QUOTE]

Thats what they refer to as SLI Hybrid.

Ah, yes, Geforce boost and sli hybrid.

[OnlineStageGear]

Also, I recall that vista will just use up all your extra ram and load it up with stuff that it thinks you use alot, superfetch, I think its called. It will keep your harddrive running for half an hour each time you boot up. Annoying, stick with xp.

I disabled Superfetch and haven't missed it one bit. Boot time, coming out of sleep mode and shutdown are all much quicker.

Matt

[Guyver1]

I keep getting conflicting stories about my inquiry from very knowledgeable people. I seen two MS certified techs about get in a fist fight over it. Nerds in a fist fight...let the windmills begin.. So here it is:

Windows XP Pro has a capacity to use 4GB of Ram. The issue at question is: Does the RAM on the MB share with the memory on the video card?

What I am getting at is if I use 4 GB of ram and 1 GB video card, will it dump a gig of MB ram to compensate to stay below the 4GB capacity or is this completely untrue?-Lou

quick answer = NO, video ram is only used by the grapics card for texture storage, its never used by windows. (i'm talking addin cards like nvidia and ATI)

a 32bit operating system can only use 4Gb due to virtual addressing limitations in the 32bit code.

Windows XP will only use 2Gb of RAM for applications and will keep the other 2Gb for the windows kernel and its own internal workings.

You can change this by using the /3GB switch in your boot.ini, this will tell windows to use 3Gb of RAM for applications and only 1Gb for itself.

Video RAM is totally seperate from system and IS NOT counted as system RAM by windows. GPU RAM is only used by the GPU for its own texture storage.

If you have 32bit windows XP and 4GB of RAM and want to use the 3GB switch then edit your boot.ini to look as follows:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=AlwaysOff /fastdetect /3GB

just add the /3GB to your existing boot.ini basically. then reboot.