Windows Vista and RAm in Microsoft Help

Windows Vista and RAm in Microsoft Help http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r22590426 en Fri, 27 Nov 2009 16:16:47 EDT Fri, 27 Nov 2009 16:16:47 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAM http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22731535 bangaroo : Not sure if this is of help or not, but I found a way to increase my recognized physical memory from 2519 to 3065 by changing my Bios setting from Switchable Graphics to Discrete Graphics.

I have a Lenovo T500 Thinkpad laptop with switchable graphics, which I guess is supposed to help with battery life. I also have a 256MB ATI Mobility Radeon 3650 graphics card.

I changed the following Bios setting.

Config > Display > Graphics Device > change to DISCRETE GRAPHICS

I also think I changed the following, but I don't quit remember for sure.

Config > Display > Graphics Device > OS Detection for Switchable Graphics > change to DISABLE

It took more than one reboot before all 546MB was recognized.

Switchable Graphics Enabled

Discrete Graphics Enabled

]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22731535 Sat, 18 Jul 2009 23:42:49 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22669519 longstreet : I lost track of what exactly was being argued a while back.

My comments have been regarding the OP's original problem : not having enough RAM.

While a multitude of solutions exist, I believe what I suggested is best, because it maximizes the amount of usable ram on the machine at any given point versus ANY other suggestion, AND it's as performant and costs less.

While running idle two similar setups may in fact show the same amount of usable ram, when under load while gaming, the tendancy of the larger card to fill up MORE addressing space than the smaller card isn't desirable, which I why I suggest going with a 512.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22669519 Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:46:39 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22652796 MHoltum :

said by Duchess44

:

I have been told I do not have enough RAM to run Windows Vista. I have Vista home premium (32-bit) and I have 2 gig of RAM. Could someone please tell me if I have enough or not? Vista came on my computer so I would assume that it came with enough to run the darn thing.

Thanks!!

My Vista Home Premium Dell computer has 2 Gig and is fine for anything I have done.

However I just built a quadcore with 6 gig and Vista really loves it.

More is better but IMO 2 is ok for most apps.
--
Sarcasm, confusing stupid people since 1869]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22652796 Sat, 04 Jul 2009 07:47:32 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22650306 elios : i gave one PAGES back no one wanted to hear it becouse of the "4GB Boggyman"

Ill restate it

Get 2x2GB of DDR2 800 or better
Get a GTS250 or 4850
BFG, eVGA, XFX for the nVidia card in that order
XFX for the ATi/AMD one

ok late edit for real

IF the 4GB limit worrys you that much Win7 RC1 is still there get it
and pre-order the upgrade for 50 bucks
/thread]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22650306 Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:24:54 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22650206 ztmike : Does every thread in this forum need to be drawn out like this?

No wonder no beginners come in here, you guys draw it out with stuff they don't understand with paragraphs that you can write a story about.

The guy is simply looking for a direct answer..now look at this thread.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22650206 Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:01:04 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22649617 bangaroo : I am a rookie at this and I am having trouble connecting all the dots, but isn't there some program/software that shows exactly how the 4G physical ram is being allocated?

Example

...100mb - BIOS
...250 mb - Video card
1,131 mb - all others listed
1,481 mb - Total used/allocated
2,519 mb- Cached and Free shown in Task manager
4,000 mb- Total Physical Ram]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22649617 Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:36:07 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22649072 Leathal : While some come with DDR3. :-)

L.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22649072 Fri, 03 Jul 2009 10:38:57 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22649065 Leathal :

said by Duchess44

:

Ok ty. I have someone trying to tell me that the recommended is 3gb. I thought my comp ran just fine..including playing WoW..

I play WoW on a 8GB machine! :-)

Leathal]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22649065 Fri, 03 Jul 2009 10:37:25 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22647615 elios : *facedesk*

read the MSDN
IT DOESNT NEED TO
it just pages what it needs via bank swiching
the GPU it self keeps track of whats in the framebuffer
then the driver maps a range in my case 256MB to the virtual address table
and any IO uses that range

works JUST like swap space which also doesnt need to be addressed just a range in the same way the GPU handles calls to the framebuffer

Before the video memory manager can manage the address space of the GPU, the display miniport driver must describe the GPU's address space to the video memory manager by using memory segments. The display miniport driver creates memory segments to generalize and virtualize video memory resources. The driver can configure memory segments according to the memory types that the hardware supports (for example, frame buffer memory or system memory aperture).

Commit limit on aperture segment
The amount of system memory that the video memory manager allows display miniport drivers to pin down (that is, the amount of system memory that display miniport drivers can memory map through an aperture segment) for GPU use at any given instant. The total amount of system memory that is allocated for the GPU might exceed the commit limit greatly; however, the video memory manager ensures that only up to a commit limit amount is actually resident in an aperture segment at any one time.

A linear aperture-space segment is similar to a linear memory-space segment; however, the aperture-space segment is only an address space and cannot hold bits. To hold the bits, system memory pages must be allocated, and the address-space range must be redirected to refer to those pages.

]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22647615 Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:07:52 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22646785 longstreet : What you are being shown and what it actually uses up are two different numbers.

Are you saying it won't address all of the VRAM when it needs it?]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22646785 Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:57:25 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22624423 elios : AH HA
i found it!
»msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library···502.aspx

/thread

The driver is not required to specify all video memory resources that are available to the GPU in its memory segments; however, the driver must specify all memory resources that the video memory manager manages among all processes running on the system.

»msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library···469.aspx]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22624423 Sun, 28 Jun 2009 15:46:58 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22624207 elios : that needs to address directly it doesnt need to have direct access to the vram and by that logic it would have to map out ALL of swap file oh wait thats right it doesnt IT PAGES JUST LIKE THE GPU
»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framebuffer

Mapping a memory range smaller than the framebuffer memory, then bank switching as necessary.

wile it CAN be mapped 1 to 1 this only done with cards with less then 512MB of ram on them

so unless you can back up your statements with memory ranges in the device manager which is it is 1 to 1 should have ranges adding up to the total on the card its useing bank switching
»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_switching

see 4 ranges

frist one is A0000 to BFFFF this is less then 1 MB ~127KB
next is the big one D0000000 to DFFFFFFF this is 256MB
then the next is 32MB A000000 to BFFFFFF
the last is 16MB wide FD000000 to FDFFFFFF

even rounding up to 1MB on the frist one its only 305MB of address space in use if it was fully mapped it should be using 896MB but its using 1/2 that

]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22624207 Sun, 28 Jun 2009 14:48:30 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22623575 Margolis : 1]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22623575 Sun, 28 Jun 2009 11:49:21 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22623569 Margolis :

said by elios

:

the GPU has its own memory controler that does its OWN addressing it just has a range in which the CPU can hand off data to

the os has to know where ALL memory it is using is. The video card may have it's own controller. but windows still has it addressed for it to be used.

As for where I got the number;

»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/32-bit

of integer values that can be stored in 32 bits is 0 through 4,294,967,295

]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22623569 Sun, 28 Jun 2009 11:46:54 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22623348 dave :

said by Margolis

:

sorry, but you need to do a bit of research.

Sigh, I do this system programming stuff for a living. I have written Windows kernel code. I know how it works.

If the OS supports PAE, applications can be paged into RAM anywhere, without application change. Even above the 4GB line. This sounds awfully like an application "taking advantage" of PAE to me -- its memory accesses naturally are relocated through the PAE mechanisms. Though since "taking advantage" is not a concept defined in the processor reference manual, I suppose there is wiggle room there.

So, statement so far: applications can use physical memory above the 4GB line without modification.

Now, a regular application has access to only its 4GB of virtual address space (of which 2GB [or 3] belongs to it, and 2GB [or 1] holds the OS global address space [depending on /3GB switch]). The 4GB limit on virtual address space naturally imposes a limit on how much RAM can be accessed (but not on where that RAM is located in the physical address space).

An application that wants to access more than 4GB of RAM, despite the limitations of its address space, can use AWE to create a physical-memory-backed section of larger size than it can address, and then remap a window from its address space into the section.

So: an application using AWE can access a total of more than 4GB of memory.

Key distinctions to be made when talking about this:

1) Virtual versus physical.

2) "Above the 4GB line" versus "more than 4GB from one process"

It can be extended in virtual memory with PAE, yes.

Nonsense. PAE is Physical Address Extension. It makes physical addresses larger. It does not change virtual addressing at all. PAE only changes the mechanisms the processor uses to translate virtual to physical. Without PAE, page tables deliver 20 bits of page frame number (i.e., 32 bits physical address). With PAE, page tables deliver 24 bits of page frame number (i.e., 36 bits physical address).

But by default, PAE is off in windows 32, unless you are are running the Server versions.

Nonsense. PAE is on in my 32-bit XP Pro systems with 2GB RAM.

(The reason PAE is on even in small-memory systems is that you have to have PAE on in order to get no-execute support. The 4GB physical limit in XP is not due to lack of PAE, it is an artificial limit due to Microsoft marketing/support policy).

And that 4GB of address range is all address, not just system.

Indeed. But as I keep saying, there is no intrinsic reason why memory on a video board needs to even have an address on the bus, all of the time. It's a matter between a board and the drivers. (I also say I don't know what current implementations actually do).]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22623348 Sun, 28 Jun 2009 10:23:17 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22622891 elios : ill post this screen shot AGAIN since you missed it
note the BIGGEST RANGE IS ZOMG 256MB then a 128MB then a few 32MB an 16MB
and then add up to much less then 892MB thats on the card
go look for your self on your 1GB card it wont be using all 1GB becouse thats just bad way to use ram in a32bit system

the GPU has its own memory controler that does its OWN addressing it just has a range in which the CPU can hand off data to

and were did you get this 4.2GB number the hardlimit is 4GB of address space FULL STOP

yes with PAE you can have 36bit addressing
but most consumer drivers dont use it

go look in your device manager your self add up the ranges i be it comes to less then 1GB

]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22622891 Sun, 28 Jun 2009 03:55:21 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22622750 Tychicus : Duchess in my humble opinion just get as much RAM as your motherboard can handle since RAM is about the cheapest upgrade you can do at this point in time.

Also go to crucials web site and it will auto detect the RAM your motherboard can use here is a link

»www.crucial.com/systemscanner/

I would then go to someplace like newegg and get some which will probably be a lot cheaper however Crucial does warrenty thier stuff.
--
Team Discovery]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22622750 Sun, 28 Jun 2009 01:59:32 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22622730 Margolis :

said by elios

:

vram is not directly addressed its paged with a hole 256 to 512MB in size any other "loss" is do the other stuff in your PC using address space

if it was the case that ram was mapped 1:1
and you had 512MB card you would have less tehn 3.5GB becouse other hardware needs ranges too it would be more like 3.2 or less

the size of the hole is set in BIOS on my system its 256MB + ~128MB for other IO that it uses when i was in XP left me with 3.25GB out of 4GB and this is with 896MB card

vram is mapped just like system memory. windows has limited address space. It does not go by a "hole" as you keep saying. That may have been how agp memory was mapped to virtual space, but not pcie. with a 512mb card and 4GB you would have ~3.5GB usable in most cases. The bios and other things needing address space are insignificant. 32bit windows can access ~4.2GB of memory, minus your your 896MB and assorted others you end up with ~3.2GB, what you see. I boot my computer up in xp 32, with a 1GB video card, it sees 3.1GB system. ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22622730 Sun, 28 Jun 2009 01:46:17 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22622724 Margolis :

said by dave

:

The vistaclues web site is clueless. Here's why.

Here’s the catch: applications have to be written specifically to take advantage of PAE.

Utterly, utterly untrue.

sorry, but you need to do a bit of research. Vistaclues is absolutely correct according to microsoft. Applications have to be written using the Address Windowing Extensions (AWE) application programming interface (api). If they don't, they can't take advantage of PAE. The 4GB video card works because of PAE and the drivers using the correct api. You need to watch what you are calling "silly statements". the fact remains that 32 bit windows has only 4GB of address space, no matter how you slice it. It can be extended in virtual memory with PAE, yes. But by default, PAE is off in windows 32, unless you are are running the Server versions. And that 4GB of address range is all address, not just system.

»www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/pl···mem.mspx

»www.dansdata.com/askdan00015.htm

»msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library···85).aspx]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22622724 Sun, 28 Jun 2009 01:43:31 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22622194 elios : vram is not directly addressed its paged with a hole 256 to 512MB in size any other "loss" is do the other stuff in your PC using address space

if it was the case that ram was mapped 1:1
and you had 512MB card you would have less tehn 3.5GB becouse other hardware needs ranges too it would be more like 3.2 or less

the size of the hole is set in BIOS on my system its 256MB + ~128MB for other IO that it uses when i was in XP left me with 3.25GB out of 4GB and this is with 896MB card]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22622194 Sat, 27 Jun 2009 22:18:10 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22622164 dave : You're right. Anything running on the CPU at any instant of time has access to no more than 4GB of physical address space on the system bus.

What you're completely overlooking is that there may be no need for all graphics memory to be accessible from the system bus at the same instant of time.

What is your explanation for how the 4GB video card is possible?

------------------------------
The vistaclues web site is clueless. Here's why.

Here’s the catch: applications have to be written specifically to take advantage of PAE.

Utterly, utterly untrue.

Once again, someone can't tell the difference between virtual addressing and physical addressing. Still, the concepts were only invented in 1960, so I guess it's early days yet.

Here's a hint: a plain old Win32 program will execute without modification on a suitable Windows Server platform just fine, even if it finds itself executing above the 4GB physical line.

If you don't understand this, then you have no idea how a memory management unit works, not indeed how processor addressing works, and you ought not to be making such silly statements.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22622164 Sat, 27 Jun 2009 22:07:50 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22622091 Margolis :

said by elios

:

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

did you MISS ALL MY POST IT DOESNT WORK THAT WAY
THE RAM ON THE CARD IS NOT MAPPED 1 TO 1 ANY MORE AND HASNT BEEN SINCE MOST CARDS HAD OVER 256MB ON THEM
RAGGGEEEE
ITS THE SAME IN THAT SWAP FILE IS NOT MAPPED 1 TO 1
WHY IS THIS SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND JUST LOOK AT THE LAST POST I MADE
»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_address_space

I saw your post. It is meaningless. 32bit windows can only address 4GB of ram. That includes video ram. we are not talking about virtual memory here, we are talking real ram.

»www.vistaclues.com/reader-questi···s-vista/]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22622091 Sat, 27 Jun 2009 21:42:54 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22620999 Duchess44 : I have an ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO. And the wattage is 350W]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22620999 Sat, 27 Jun 2009 16:05:49 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22620950 elios : yea

totaly replace what you have now take a look at the ram i linked its cheaper a better brand and MUCH faster and will run at DDR2 800 speeds which your CPU was made for using DDR2 667 on a quad core is a sin go DDR2 800 or better it doesnt cost any more as you can see]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22620950 Sat, 27 Jun 2009 15:40:45 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22620646 ztmike : I saw you made a thread in the PC Gaming forum..check my reply in there for a recommendation on what GPU and PSU.

»Looking to upgrade memory and possibly video card ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22620646 Sat, 27 Jun 2009 13:54:53 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22620567 ztmike :

quote:
So I should just replace the 2gig I already have? And that price is great!

I would. More than likely you have a different type of ram brand in there right now. So yea I would replace it, so its all the same.

quote:
Also, do you guys think I should replace my video card? Or is replacing the memory going to be enough

What do you have now? Just onboard? Do you have a PCI-E slot? (CPU-Z, should tell you, under "Mainboard" tab.)

Can't really give you choices when I don't know what type of graphics slot your computer has, or the current PSU wattage your running..I'm guessing stock on that part. ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22620567 Sat, 27 Jun 2009 13:35:57 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22620496 Duchess44 :

said by ztmike

:

He does gaming..

I just looked through the thread and I saw what type of ram you use, this should do ya good

»www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a···20134747

$51 with free shipping for 2 sticks of 2gig ram for a total of 4gigs.

It is a desktop though right?

Yes, a desktop. So I should just replace the 2gig I already have? And that price is great!

Also, do you guys think I should replace my video card? Or is replacing the memory going to be enough?]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22620496 Sat, 27 Jun 2009 13:16:26 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22620075 elios : 2x2GB wouldnt need too which is kinda the point
why get slower ram for the same or more then you can get faster ram?

this is the same thing i tell every one else that upgrades ram

pull what you have put in 2x2GB of nice DDR2 1066 call it a day the price difference is 0 or some time less if you shop around

in this case the faster 1066 is 5 bucks less then "namebrand" Kingston which is kinda crappy any more imo
OP has a Q6600 which really needs DDR2 800 any way so and im sure the board can run 1066 if you really wanted to but running 1066 lets you run 5-5-5-12 at 800 with lower vdimm]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22620075 Sat, 27 Jun 2009 11:19:19 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22620062 ztmike : He has PC2 5300, you can mix the ram like that? ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22620062 Sat, 27 Jun 2009 11:15:23 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22620032 elios : the thing is DDR2 is cheaper then air
the price saving from 2x1GB to 2x2GB is very small like 5-10 bucks at most no point in running 4 sicks and slowing your PC down when you have a matched set of likely much faster ram in a 2x2GB setup
»www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a···20231226
heres 4GB and its 1066 and CHEAPER then that 667
like i said DDR2 is insanely cheap no point not get good 1066 ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22620032 Sat, 27 Jun 2009 11:06:45 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22620005 ztmike : He does gaming..

I just looked through the thread and I saw what type of ram you use, this should do ya good

»www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a···20134747

$51 with free shipping for 2 sticks of 2gig ram for a total of 4gigs.

It is a desktop though right?]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22620005 Sat, 27 Jun 2009 11:00:32 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22619992 dave : You've got 2GB, which is likely enough. It really depends on what you're doing. I've got a general-purpose Vista system (web, email, office tools) which is just fine with that, INCLUDING the fact that the shared-memory graphics snarfs up some of the RAM.

If you want to buy more, it depends on how many memory slots you have free. Best case, you've got 4 slots and 2 of them each has a 1-GB stick installed. Buy two more 1-GB sticks. So, maybe you won't be able to use the full 4GB, but you'll use as much as you can.

The only reason I can see for sticking at 3GB is that the cost difference is significant for you. And since I haven't looked at memory prices nor your bank statement, I can't be much use there.

Warning: I have met a few cheap motherboards where filling all 4 memory slots results in a flaky system. If that happens to you, your next best step is to consider discarding the memory you have, and buying two 2-GB sticks (assuming your motherboard supports them; use a good memory advisor like the one at Crucial's web site).

But, really, absent any data that says you're hurting for memory, just leave it at 2GB. ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22619992 Sat, 27 Jun 2009 10:57:48 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22619962 ztmike :

said by Duchess44

:

Nothing yet. I am so confused at this point I really don't know what to do. I don't understand most of what has been said here, and I would love if someone could please tell me in layman's terms what I should get. I am tempted to go with the 3gigs of RAM, however.

From a gamer to a gamer..honestly man..the savings you would get for going with 3gigs instead of 4 is not that much..

If I was you, I would just go with 4gigs. What type of ram do you have? I'll see what I can find for prices. ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22619962 Sat, 27 Jun 2009 10:50:02 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22619956 dadkins :

said by Duchess44

Just go with the 3GB and disregard all the posturing being thrown around in this now dead thread. :hmm:
--
Think outside the Fox... Opera]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22619956 Sat, 27 Jun 2009 10:48:28 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22619941 Duchess44 : Nothing yet. I am so confused at this point I really don't know what to do. I don't understand most of what has been said here, and I would love if someone could please tell me in layman's terms what I should get. I am tempted to go with the 3gigs of RAM, however.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22619941 Sat, 27 Jun 2009 10:43:39 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22619934 ztmike : lol..wow this thread got derailed like a train wreck.

What did the OP ever go with?]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22619934 Sat, 27 Jun 2009 10:41:22 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22619917 dave : Here: »www.nvidia.com/object/product_qu···_us.html

is a 4GB graphics card. It is supported on 32-bit Windows XP and 32-bit Windows Vista.

Do you suppose that a 4GB graphics card consumes 4GB of physical address space out of the total of 4GB of physical address space available to the entire system.

I don't know the answer, but my guess is "no, it doesn't" ;-)

So, in principle the idea that an N-GB card always uses N GB of address space is not true, no?

(Of course, particular cases may use up the whole N, I'm not saying they never do).]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22619917 Sat, 27 Jun 2009 10:31:58 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22619916 elios : the data does infact get paged this is why we have huge amounts of ram on cards
copy to and from system ram is VERY SLOW even over PCI-e
when you load a level for game it loads all the assets for that level that will need to in the vram space a head of time

console with shared system/vram steam the data as needed which is why they get away with much smaller ram sizes

but on the PC front everything is loaded a head of time
and data is paged in an out as needed
if you have ever tryed to play a game on an older GPU with less then 256MB ram with lots of AA and high res textures you get stuttering this is a symptom of the copying that has to be done when the card runs out of local ram and has to swap to system ram for more textures ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22619916 Sat, 27 Jun 2009 10:31:57 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22619892 dave : What you wrote about the MMU (Dynamic Address Translation) is true but irrelevant, since it describes how the virtual address space seen by code executing on the x68 is mapped to physical addresses. And mentioning the need to read in pages from disks will confuse everyone.

Back to your main point.

It is entirely possible that a graphics board can possess more memory than it exposes to the physical address bus (PCI, AGP, or the modern replacements) on the system. There's no law of nature that requires everything in the computer to see all memory that the graphics board possesses. The only memory that needs to be bus-addressed is memory that is used for communication between the CPU(s) and the graphics processor(s). And it's also possible for a large amount of physical graphics-board memory to be selectively paged(*) into and out of a much smaller window of bus address space.

(*) does not imply anything gets copied, which would be slow. This is simply a change in some bus-to-board mapping hardware.

So, you're describing a plausible scenario. I don't know enough about current board architecture to know whether that's what actually happens. I tend to suspect you're right, since from the viewpoint of the entire system, having an N-gigabyte device claim N gigabytes of scarce(**) bus address space _all the time_ would be a terrible design.

(**) scarce from the point of view of a 32-bit physical address width limit. Likely ok for 36-bit, fine for the 48-bit-or-whatever limit in current 64-bit systems, but these board designers know they're selling today into the canonical 32-bit Windows desktop. ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22619892 Sat, 27 Jun 2009 10:21:29 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22619764 elios :

said by Margolis

:

I don't know who is being called clueless here, but Longstreet is correct. vista/xp 32 are limited to 4GB address space. That includes space for bios, pci bus, video memory, etc... With a 1GB video card, only ~3GB of system memory will be usable.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

did you MISS ALL MY POST IT DOESNT WORK THAT WAY
THE RAM ON THE CARD IS NOT MAPPED 1 TO 1 ANY MORE AND HASNT BEEN SINCE MOST CARDS HAD OVER 256MB ON THEM
RAGGGEEEE
ITS THE SAME IN THAT SWAP FILE IS NOT MAPPED 1 TO 1
WHY IS THIS SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND JUST LOOK AT THE LAST POST I MADE
»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_address_space

Dynamic address translation

If, while executing an instruction, a CPU fetches an instruction located at a particular virtual address, fetches data from a specific virtual address or stores data to a particular virtual address, the virtual address must be translated to the corresponding physical address. This is done by a hardware component, sometimes called a memory management unit, which looks up the real address (from the page table) corresponding to a virtual address and passes the real address to the parts of the CPU which execute instructions. If the page tables indicate that the virtual memory page is not currently in real memory, the hardware raises a page fault exception (special internal signal) which invokes the paging supervisor component of the operating system (see below).

vram is paged JUST like the swap file it has memory range it uses for this usely no bigger then 256MB or so]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22619764 Sat, 27 Jun 2009 09:27:10 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22619263 Margolis : I don't know who is being called clueless here, but Longstreet is correct. vista/xp 32 are limited to 4GB address space. That includes space for bios, pci bus, video memory, etc... With a 1GB video card, only ~3GB of system memory will be usable. ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22619263 Sat, 27 Jun 2009 02:21:44 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22619253 HeavyHemi : Actually 2 sticks of 2Gb would be a far better choice and cost essentially the same. That isn't really debatable. But it is entertaing to read someone give bad advice and incorrect information with the absolute certainty of the truly clueless.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22619253 Sat, 27 Jun 2009 02:16:25 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22619251 Margolis : WoW is very cpu and memory intensive. More memory helps. A 64 bit os helps in that aspect since it is able to use the extra memory more efficiently.

Here is a shot of mine tonight in 10 man naxx. 64bit vista.

I was at 1.16GB memory before starting the game.

]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22619251 Sat, 27 Jun 2009 02:15:08 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22619137 HeavyHemi : LOL, you just have to love these guys obviously used to running notepad on a low end system. ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22619137 Sat, 27 Jun 2009 01:26:01 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22612704 elios : i can prove that wrong right now

note the ranges for the GTX260 add up to much less then is on the card

/thread have a nice day

the bigest range D0000000 to DFFFFFFF is 256MB in size all the others are 16 to 32MB total usage less then 512MB
total local ram on the card 896MB

]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22612704 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:50:05 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22612621 longstreet : I'm talking about addressing space. Video memory size reduces addressing space. No room for debate on that.

Sometimes it can take more, up to a gig, but it's never less than the amount of memory on the card.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22612621 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:30:15 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22612504 elios : wow your slow

it was just to show how it works >.>
the GPU pages ram just like swap file same IDEA
just like how the swap file doesnt need to have physical address for whole thing
the GPU does not need ALL of the ram mapped just a window it can use to page and for other IO
if you look at your GPU in device manager you will see it has 3-4 ranges 2-3 are for bulk data and 1 is for command IO
the GPUs ram is mapped virtually in the driver then paged via a hole the driver makes in the physical address space

BOTTOM LINE RAM ON THE GPU DOES NOT IMPACT USABLE SYSTEM RAM ANY MORE THEN ANY OTHER GPU BE IT 256MB or 10GB JUST LIKE THE SIZE OF THE SWAP FILE DOES NOT HAVE AN IMPACT ON USABLE RAM ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22612504 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:09:12 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22612453 longstreet : CPU to Memory operations are several order of magnitude faster than CPU to drive operations.

Anyway, I think this tangent has gone on long enough. There's not much knowledge the OP probably has gained through this.

Basically, with my suggestion the system would not start CPU -> drive operations as soon. That's my point in a nutshell.

If the problem were the size of the video card and not the system memory, THEN you may have a point.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22612453 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:55:16 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22612433 elios :

said by longstreet

:

Anytime we start using a drive for memory, we've just lost the whole point of the conversation.

not really the ram on the card is treated the same there is physical address range that maps to a vitrual one /thread
the card could have 1MB or 10GB doesnt matter
what changes is the size of that range which maxes out at ~512MB give or take
the GPU has its own memory controller and addressing
this then gets mapped to a physical range ~512MB wide regardless of Vram size

ie
a GTS260 with 800+MB on it in a 32bit XP set with 4GB of ram i see ~3.25 or so useable
512MB of that is GPU addressing the rest is other stuff that needs memory ranges ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22612433 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:51:41 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22612422 longstreet : Anytime we start using a drive for memory, we've just lost the whole point of the conversation.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22612422 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:49:39 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22612411 elios :

said by longstreet

:

Elios,

This just isn't correct. It's bad information. You know a few things, but either i'm not making it clear or you just don't understand how it works.

The important factor is addressing.

Video RAM is addressed... period. That reduces the amount available to the system ... period.

Installing a 1 gig card on a 32 bit OS REDUCES addressable space by 1 gig . . .period.

That's not good when you have someone needing more main memory.

yes but the GPU the drive then make a maps out a range that OS and CPU use to move data in pages just like swap file does

think of local ram on the GPU as swap space the CPU doesnt need to know the address of all of it just a range
the CPU then uses this range to page data in and out

if this was true then the page file would ALSO have to be addressed also limiting the usable system ram its not
and the GPU is treated in the same way as the swap file
like dave said the physical address are much smaller then virtual ones used to map out vram ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22612411 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:46:58 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22612384 longstreet : Elios,

This just isn't correct. It's bad information. You know a few things, but either i'm not making it clear or you just don't understand how it works.

The important factor is addressing.

Video RAM is addressed... period. That reduces the amount available to the system ... period.

Installing a 1 gig card on a 32 bit OS REDUCES addressable space by 1 gig . . .period.

That's not good when you have someone needing more main memory.

Considering that there's only 3 gig left addressable, the other system devices will take some of it, leaving the OP with less than 3 gigs of memory free and clear.

It doesn't SHOW this in system information like i'm talking about.

If my suggestion is taken, then a FULL 3 gig will be available solely as main memory.

If she upgrades to a 1 gig card and bumps the memory, less than 3 gig will be available...]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22612384 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:41:28 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22612373 dave : I find that most people who try and discuss this don't distinguish virtual addressing (or 'logical addressing' as the Intel manuals have it) and physical addressing.

As as result, the discussions are quickly unintelliible.

(Not intended as comment on you, personally).

As far as apps are concerned, it's all virtual addressing.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22612373 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:39:28 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22612356 elios : With a 32 bit OS, you can't address more than 4 gig total.

this is wrong Windows uses 36bit addressing

also the ram on the GPU has no effect on system ram
the GPU has its own addressing that maps 2-3 256MB ranges to all of its ram
the GPU could have 512 or 5GB it wouldnt matter it would still use only 512 to 768MB max

You may see that you are using nearly 3 gig of memory, but that's including video and other system devices. The actual amount of main memory available to the system outside of video or other system devices is lower than what it shows

this is wrong is SOO SOO SOOOOOOO MANY WAYS
that is system ram only the amount of ram used for for that ap only as show in the taskman list wow uses 1.2GB or so
the amount of vram used is hidden from the user

we test this with a game called x-plane that will display but system ram and vram used ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22612356 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:35:03 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22612297 longstreet : I already know you have 4 gig physically installed, you've stated that previously. I'm just making sure we understand, or that we're not confusing terminology.

I'm not sure what is being debated here. I'm not trying to stir shit in anyone's direction, i'm here to educate so the right choice can be made.

With a 32 bit OS, you can't address more than 4 gig total.

This includes memory that the system requires, along with video memory.

With regard to the OP, there's a few choices :

1) upgrade to 64 bit
2) bump memory to 3 or 4 gig and stick with a 512mb card
3) bump memory to 3 or 4 gig and get a bigger card (1 gig )

Obviously, upgrading to 64 bit is the best choice performance wise.

#2 and #3 however, are points of contention because we are approaching the addressable space limit.

As I've previously stated, bumping the installed memory to 4 gig, doesn't hurt anything and it will work, it also will cost more. If money is important, I would not suggest getting the extra stick.

If the OP gets a 1 gig card, that reduces the addressable space further. If there is memory issues as the OP stated, that's the last thing the OP should do.

By installing 3 gig and keeping/upgrading a 512 card, the OP is increasing the amount of memory available, but not reducing the addressable space, which is desirable in her situation.

In this example the OP can use a full 3 gig solely as main memory, while in the previous example, the OP cannot because the video card eats up an extra 512mb that she NEEDS available as main memory (not mapped to a system device)

If she puts in a 1 gig card and bumps it to 3 or 4 gig, that actually is reducing the amount of main memory available for the system to use AS MAIN MEMORY, causing the 'wasted gig' I mentioned earlier.

You may see that you are using nearly 3 gig of memory, but that's including video and other system devices. The actual amount of main memory available to the system outside of video or other system devices is lower than what it shows

]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22612297 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:22:42 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22611626 longstreet : err, Windows. ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22611626 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 20:09:14 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22611580 elios : THIS IS a 64bit PC
did you even LOOK at the screen shot
did you MISS the 4GB of physical ram
did you just over look that it using almost 3GB
and the swap file is MUCH bigger its that part that say page file
its 8GB with 4GB used
and if you count cached ram the system is using every thing but like 10MB

paging it disk is ASS slow and if you look the max page file size is the same some stuff got shifted to it becouse thats how windows works when you load big stuff in to ram it will push out some of cached data to the page file and keep as much of the active ap in physical ram

you really dont know how ram works stop posting your making your self look bad

if you look in this screen shot you can see whats running sorted by working set
*32 means a 32bit ap on the 64bit OS aps with out that are native 64bit
the max ram for most 32bit aps is 2GB as you can see WoW uses over 1GB
+ all the other stuff running this is why more ram == faster
swaping to disk is VERY VERY slow

]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22611580 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 19:56:53 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22611569 longstreet : Your paging file grew alot with wow running. Might be interesting to find out if that happens on a 64 bit machine.

Edit : Virtual memory doesn't count.

When you run out of memory, windows will increase paging to compensate. ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22611569 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 19:54:46 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22610926 elios : this is me just sitting at the desktop
right more the 2.5GB is useless SURE
like i said WoW can use 1GB+ on its own throw in add-ons and gets close to the 2GB max for a 32bit ap

the 2nd one is with WoW running as you can see a system with 2GB or even 2.5 would be maxed out even 3GB could be closer then i would like

]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22610926 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:10:59 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22610831 howie : The way I look at it is that RAM is at rock-bottom prices now and it could go much higher at any time. I'd go 4GB dual-channel without a second thought and wouldn't mix different RAM if I could help it. For under 50 bucks you can get a matched pair of DDR2 2GB modules. A no-brainer, IMHO. :-)]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22610831 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:57:04 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22610799 elios : wow are you sooo wrong its not even funny

dual channel ram makes HUGE difference
and were did you just get that 2.5GB number from your ass?
becouse it has no basis on now any OS works

game load times are directly effected but memory bandwidth

also the OP wants to run WoW i see that game easly use more then 1GB of ram all the time when im playing
faster/dual channel ram makes load times MUCH faster

if i wasnt so lazy i would pull a stick of ram and do my own single / dual channel tests but i can tell you how it will end
dual channel makes load times faster ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22610799 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:54:07 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22609838 earletp : Thank you for answering my question.

After reading your response with all the edits, maybe a thank you is no longer in order....

(sorry hit the wrong button, the reply was not directed at Duchess)]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22609838 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:15:30 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22609793 longstreet : With the advent (in 2006) of the core 2 processor and related hardware changes, the advantages of running dual channel memory were marginalized.

The OP has a Intel core-based system, it would seem your comment is highly contentious.

The greatest benefit of doing this was with the old Athlon 64 processors and motherboards, of which now you would have a struggle finding for sale from a retailer.

Tom's Hardware found nearly no difference between using it or not (note that the difference they found was wholly synthetic, they didn't actually measure real world increases)

Add, that if a bottleneck in your system is your memory, it's likely the size of the memory and not the 'dual-channel' gimmick most people have 'borrowed' from the Athlon 64 days.

News Flash : Dual channel doesn't help anymore.

---]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22609793 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:07:28 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22609622 earletp :

said by longstreet

said by HeavyHemi

:

Each device in your system is mapped a certain amount of memory. As most have noted here, about 3.5GB w/o shared video memory is about the max you'll get. With your shared 1GB memory, that would work out to about 2.5 available to the system.

By using three 1GB sticks you lose the performance benefits of running your RAM in dual-channel mode.

I'm curious if you've taken that into consideration and concluded it's not worth the few extra dollars for a fourth stick or a 2 x 2GB configuration, or it is something you accidentally over looked?]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22609622 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:41:57 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22609441 jabarnut : Wow...this thread sure has come a long way since the original question.

said by Duchess44

And I'm sticking with my original reply.
Yes, 2GB of Ram will "run Windows Vista". :D
--
I had a life once.....now I have a Computer and a Modem.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22609441 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:10:02 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22609301 longstreet :

quote:
Not sure on the exact power requirments for a 8800GT though, I myself put in a Corsair 620watt PSU, but I'll be running some extra stuff with that also. (extra fans/and soon another harddrive)

I ran SLI with 8800 GTX's, RAID 0, lots of case fans, quad extreme . .

I had a 600 watt supply ... had no issues.

Shooting from the hip, you probably need about a 400 watt supply for that card.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22609301 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:50:19 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22609280 longstreet :

said by HeavyHemi

Any amount over 2.5 gig is useless. Since memory is commonly available in 1 gig sticks / 4 dimms, I recommend 3 gig as the max in this situation.

This really isn't a debatable topic, but it is entertaining to watch people suggest to others how to waste money.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22609280 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:46:30 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22609232 longstreet : Going over 3 gig and 512 video isn't going to help the OP until an upgrade to 64 bit is complete.

Paging Mchart to this thread.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22609232 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:39:31 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22608046 elios : fyi
that "shared ram" isnt addressed ram its ram that GPU can use for storing stuff in main memory

think turbocache or AGP texture memory
to see what address ranges and how much address space that your GPU is using you need to go in the device manager

and the guy asking were his ram is

---> Intel® Turbo Memory hard drive cache 2G
the other .5GB is hardware addressing ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22608046 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:19:01 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22607623 dave :

said by bangaroo

:

How to explain the other 0.5GB?

Your system contains things other than RAM and a video card.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22607623 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 09:01:44 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22607221 ztmike : I vote the OP get 4GB of RAM. But that's me..Use CPU-Z to find out what type of RAM you have and then go to Newegg.com and buy some..easy enough.

I saw someone mentioned to get a GTS250 I think it was..if you get something that strong, you will need a new PSU for sure.

I say get a Nvidia 8800GT 512ram card, you can find them for cheap if you look. And they run newer games, it would probably run WoW excellent.

Not sure on the exact power requirments for a 8800GT though, I myself put in a Corsair 620watt PSU, but I'll be running some extra stuff with that also. (extra fans/and soon another harddrive)]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22607221 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 05:26:27 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22606996 HeavyHemi : Each device in your system is mapped a certain amount of memory. As most have noted here, about 3.5GB w/o shared video memory is about the max you'll get. With your shared 1GB memory, that would work out to about 2.5 available to the system.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22606996 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 02:11:37 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22606895 bangaroo : Maybe the 1003mb of shared system memory for graphics?

Still not sure how the math works.

4GB less 1.0GB shared memory = 3.0GB.

How to explain the other 0.5GB?

]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22606895 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 01:24:10 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22606813 HeavyHemi : I'd say it's likely your intel turbo cache.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22606813 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:52:12 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22606797 HeavyHemi : Perhaps this will ease the confusion over how video memory is mapped. Hint...with the latest udates to Vista GPU memory size is essentially irrelevant to system memory.

»support.microsoft.com/kb/940105

Nothing at all wrong with installing 4GB system memory with a 1GB GPU. As a matter of fact this a a nice combo and your q6600 would drive a nvidia 250 GTX rather nicely. :)]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22606797 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:45:06 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22601313 bangaroo : Anyone know why my system only shows 2519 Physical Memory? I know I won't get 4GB, but other 32bit owners are getting 3.1GB.

My system specs.

Lenovo T500 laptop
Vista 32Bit Home
4 GB PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM 1067MHz SODIMM Memory (2 DIMM)
ATI Mobility Radeon 3650 with 256MB
Intel® Turbo Memory hard drive cache 2G

]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22601313 Wed, 24 Jun 2009 06:01:23 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22601014 elios : »www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1035670

read that

a 1GB video card is FINE 4GB of ram is FINE
running 4x ram sticks can lead to slower ram speeds
its better to just get 2x 2GB and leave it be and go 64bit at a latter time

the VRAM does not impact the useble system ram only the card mapped IO set by the driver and BIOS
L2MEMORY MAPPED IO

The hole the graphics adapter causes in physical memory is called its aperture. This value is settable in the system BIOS, at the cost of being able to access memory on the video card directly and rapidly. With very large buffers on video cards, and the advent of SLI systems, the memory aperture taken out of the system address space can be huge, and reduces the usable general-purpose memory accessible by the system.

your confusing this with mapping all of the vram
the aperture setting is normal ~128MB to 256MB MAYBE has high as 512MB but a setting of 256MB is fine and tests show a larger setting doesnt really effect speed much if at all

While the card still reserves 256 megs for its video memory, the aperture now takes much more room from the system address space. In the first screen shot, we see the aperture is from 0xF8000000 to 0xFBFFFFFF, which is 64 megabytes. On the second screen shot, the aperture extends from 0xE0000000 to 0xEFFFFFFF, which is 256 megabytes.

Had this system four gigs of memory, the system would show at most 3.94 gigabytes of physical memory available after it booted with the 64 megabyte aperture. With the 256 megabyte aperture, the maximum is 3.75 gigabytes. The true maximum is substantially less, since the 256 megabyte card memory also comes from the physical address space, as well as memory for other devices on the system.

»blogs.technet.com/markrussinovic···070.aspx

I purchased one from a boutique gaming rig company that came with 4GB of RAM and two 1GB video cards.
Device Manager reveals that 512MB of the over 2GB hole is for the video cards (256MB each), and it looks like the firmware has reserved more for either dynamic mappings or because it was conservative in its estimate:

]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22601014 Wed, 24 Jun 2009 01:50:23 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22600824 Keizer :

said by longstreet

:

Again, my recommendation to the OP :

3 gig main memory installed max

No bigger than a 512mb video.

That would be my recommendation too. That or switch to a 64 bit OS. ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22600824 Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:31:01 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22600401 longstreet : Again, my recommendation to the OP :

3 gig main memory installed max

No bigger than a 512mb video.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22600401 Tue, 23 Jun 2009 22:43:04 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22600355 dave : Allow me to translate into English ;-)

"It is not necessary that all memory on the video board be mapped into the address space seen by the processor and system bus."

Now, whether or not this is a true statement in any particular case, I don't know. But it's plausible as a general statement of system structure.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22600355 Tue, 23 Jun 2009 22:32:54 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22600294 longstreet : Different versions of the Windows OS tend to display memory differently. Just because you see 3.75 doesn't mean you're actually able to use 3.75 gigs.

This is the difference between 'physical' installed ram and 'usable' ram. 'Usable' happens to be what I am discussing, not what is displayed. Sure the BIOS will tell you how much you have installed and windows may vary in what it reports to you, but the limit doesn't change.

XP and Vista report these differently, sometimes, depending on the version and service pack, it may display more or less, but the usable amount of memory doesn't change regardless of what is displayed.

The OS can also vary how much memory it reserves for the system + video, so the exact same hardware setup on different versions of windows may display differently.

You may be seeing 3.75gb on your XP system, but that's purely cosmetic, it's not a reliable indication of how much is usable.

The system itself needs to reserve memory, so even in the best case, regardless of how you choose to interpret the amount of memory displayed, you're still bound by the limit.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22600294 Tue, 23 Jun 2009 22:21:09 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22599946 elios : IT DOES NOT WORK THAT WHAT

the card it self gets an IO range this is mapped to the ram on the card by the card it self
this range use usely 512MB wide

i know

i had GTX260 + 4GB or ram in XP Pro 32bit and my useble ram was 3.75GB the GTX260 has 800MB+ of VRAM
YOU DO KNOW NOW HOW MEMORY MAPPED IO WORKS STOP SPREADING FUD
THE GPU MAPS ITS OWN RAM THE CPU MAPS THE IO RANGE FOR CARD USELY LESS THEN 512MB NORMALY ~256MB

AVG USABLE RAM REGARDLESS OF VRAM SIZE IS ~3.someGB

the card may set aside ~1GB for texture swaping when in 3d mode but thats no mapped twice

dont beleave me go look at the IO range and memory mappings in the device manager]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22599946 Tue, 23 Jun 2009 21:12:14 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22599860 longstreet : Not sure exactly what you think is wrong. What do you know about windows and VRAM?

Nobody is contesting you can put in more than can be addressed. Sure, the computer will work fine, but in her case, it is ill-advised.

But, The OP should know windows counts VRAM up to a gig, in its addressable space.

Upgrading to a 1 gig card with 3 gig of ram will result in less main memory being available for use. So, go ahead and put in the memory, but the OP won't get anything out of it.

It would be better to stick with an upgraded 512 card and bump the memory. Hey, what do I know. I only write software for a living. Don't take it from me.

I can link the microsoft technical article if you still doubt. ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22599860 Tue, 23 Jun 2009 20:55:38 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22598807 elios : thats sOOOO wrong i dont know were to start

OK the total amount of ram on the card has NO bearing on the range it uses for memory mapped IO

two
you can use 4 GB of ram JUST FINE in a 32bit OS
i did it
its better to use matched ram and keep to no more then 2 sticks of ram

which is why i said to get 2x 2GB DDR2 is cheaper then air no point NOT to get 4GB

both cards are mid range the extra 512 on the ATi card is gimmic it matter much really and itll use use the same memory range as card with 16MB on it

said by Duchess44

:

Ok found this:
»www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a···20145098
Would it work on my computer? And if so, I am thinking of getting 2 packs, meaning 4 sticks alltogether. I will only put 3 in, but if it is better to replace all memory at the same time, this would be the better deal.

its not a good idea to run 4 sticks you will lose some speed its really just better to run 2x 2GB
fyi they do not make 1.5GB sticks
just get 2x 2GB it may not use all of it but it will work just fine
you can always move to winodws7 64bit later ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22598807 Tue, 23 Jun 2009 17:41:41 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22598442 longstreet :

said by elios

:

imo ATi 4850 cheap fast and made by XFX now
»www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a···14150351
if you want an nVidia card GTS250
»www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a···14130468
same price range bit slower
and as always if you do get ether get the latest driver from the web sites!

as for ram
not even 50 bucks
»www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a···20231122
pull out what you have put that in call it a day
if you want some thing with a bit more oomph in it
»www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a···20227298
53 bucks

Careful, the ATI card is a 1 gig . . .while the EVGA card is a 512 . . .

The OP has stated they are going to stick with 32 bit and 3 gig max . . . if they went with the ATI card, it would be counter productive to upgrade to 4gig, as it would require an additional 512 mb to be addressed.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22598442 Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:46:50 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22596806 Duchess44 : WoW (no pun intended) that's pretty good. :)]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22596806 Tue, 23 Jun 2009 12:42:43 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22596664 dadkins :

said by Duchess44

:

How did it do on the recommended specs? That's what your first test showed.

Here's mine...(sorry, my screen isn't so big :)

Wrath of the Lich King.
Remember, this is a laptop.
--
Think outside the Fox... Opera

]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22596664 Tue, 23 Jun 2009 12:19:42 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22596655 Duchess44 : Thanks for the links. I am not really looking for 2GB strips. I would prefer to only add 3Gig at this time, and preferably at the same time because I was told that it was better to replace all the memory at the same time.

I am impressed with the video card recommendation, tho :) I am liking the ATI better, since all of my cards have been ATI.

And, if I do get that, I will need to upgrade my PSU. Any recommendations?]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22596655 Tue, 23 Jun 2009 12:18:46 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22596638 Duchess44 : Ok found this:
»www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a···20145098
Would it work on my computer? And if so, I am thinking of getting 2 packs, meaning 4 sticks alltogether. I will only put 3 in, but if it is better to replace all memory at the same time, this would be the better deal.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22596638 Tue, 23 Jun 2009 12:16:39 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22596001 elios : imo ATi 4850 cheap fast and made by XFX now
»www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a···14150351
if you want an nVidia card GTS250
»www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a···14130468
same price range bit slower
and as always if you do get ether get the latest driver from the web sites!

as for ram
not even 50 bucks
»www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a···20231122
pull out what you have put that in call it a day
if you want some thing with a bit more oomph in it
»www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a···20227298
53 bucks ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22596001 Tue, 23 Jun 2009 10:29:37 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22595538 Duchess44 : So the general consensus is that I should get a few more sticks of memory and perhaps upgrade my video card? I understand about getting the whole 3 gig at once and that's not a problem. My only issue now is whether to and which video card to upgrade to.

I appreciate all the help everyone :)]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22595538 Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:56:36 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22595527 Duchess44 :

said by idlewillkill

:

You mentioned you're not terribly happy with the performance you're getting right now.
Have you turned the shadow detail down?
It carries a HUGE performance penalty. I have mine down to medium. My video card isn't a beast, but faster than yours, and high shadow detail made it cry.

Yea, I always have had it turned all the way down ever since it first showed up in my settings.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22595527 Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:54:01 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22595066 elios : DDR2 is cheaper then air no point and not upgrading to 4GB
wile some will SAY you need 64bit windows this is not totally true
you can run it just fine some of the ram will not be used becouse some hardware uses the address range space

but dont let that stop you

in the mean time if you really want to use it all Windows 7 Beta is great and free for the next year and gives you time to save up and buy a copy just get the 64bit ver

oh Running WoW maxed out but shadows one noch back
~60FPS all the time on a OCed E7200 @ 3.8Ghz Dual core and a GTX260

4GB of ram on Vista x64

]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22595066 Tue, 23 Jun 2009 03:38:18 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22595044 idlewillkill : FYI, this is what I'm running to get ~60 FPS, on a Q6600 OC to 3.2 ghz, 4 gigs RAM, and a slightly overclocked 9800GT. Resolution is 1680 x 1050, so you wouldn't need as much to hit decent framerates at a lower resolution.

]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22595044 Tue, 23 Jun 2009 03:13:27 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22595039 idlewillkill : You mentioned you're not terribly happy with the performance you're getting right now.
Have you turned the shadow detail down?
It carries a HUGE performance penalty. I have mine down to medium. My video card isn't a beast, but faster than yours, and high shadow detail made it cry.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22595039 Tue, 23 Jun 2009 03:07:51 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22594891 djrobx : 2GB should be OK. If you use Aero and have a large high resolution monitor or dual displays, you really need more. Aero uses a tremendous amount of RAM when you have a large desktop.
--
AT&T U-Hearse
Your funeral. Delivered.
]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22594891 Tue, 23 Jun 2009 01:48:39 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22594443 Keizer : If you are a gamer, then 2 gigs of RAM is bare bones minimum with Vista. I have 8 gigs running Vista 64, and some games use 28% of my 8 gigs of RAM at times.

By the way, that "Can you run it" test does not read video RAM correctly. ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22594443 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 23:37:32 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22594406 Duchess44 : How did it do on the recommended specs? That's what your first test showed.

Here's mine...(sorry, my screen isn't so big :)

]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22594406 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 23:30:35 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22594313 howie : Not too bad...

]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22594313 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 23:08:31 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22594276 Duchess44 : Sorry, guess I should have been more specific. The latest expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, is a much more graphic-intense game and a little harder on systems than the original.

Try that one and see if there is any difference :)]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22594276 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 22:59:51 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22593765 howie : Cool tool, dadkins

! :-)

]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22593765 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:14:05 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22593664 dadkins : WoW?

]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22593664 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:55:47 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22593400 dadkins :

said by Duchess44

:

Strange that's exactly how mine looked when I took it. Only it was 1.37 instead of 1.35.

BTW..is that with or without WoW running?

And, where do I look on here to see what Memory I need to purchase?

Without.
Don't do WoW.
I have a bunch of other crap though.

This is with Flatout 2 running ontop of everything else(see pic)

Crucial has a scanner that should see what you got and what it can hold:
»www.crucial.com/
--
Think outside the Fox... Opera

]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22593400 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 19:56:07 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22593183 PeteC2 : Well, I see no compelling reason for you to upgrade your ram...2gb is just fine for what you want to run, and do. Is there anything "wrong" with going to 3gb or 4gb? No, but I suspect that you will be hard-pressed to tell the difference.

Funny thing is, if you do want to upgrade your ram, then I would recommend going to 4gb, rather than 3gb. The reason is that at 3gb you will not be running your memory in dual channel mode, and while that is not a huge issue, you will lose a small amount of performance over running in dual channel.
--
Deeds, not words]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22593183 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 19:09:59 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22592497 Duchess44 : Yea I think right now I am just going to tackle one thing at a time. Right now I am going to worry about the memory. I believe, thanks' to everyone here, I will just get 3 gig. Just trying to figure out which to get...seeing as the price is SO different between Newegg and Crucial. Crucial was way cheaper. If it was the same memory, which it should be.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22592497 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:52:09 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22592461 howie : I'm using this card and I'm completely happy with it (scores a 5.9 on Vista's WEI)...
»www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a···14102719
I'm sure there are several other good recommendations. :-)]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22592461 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:42:34 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22592451 longstreet : If you want better fps you can always upgrade your graphics. Games these days are more video card dependant.

If you do get a bigger video card (greater than 512 mb), windows will address that additional memory up to 1gig, so you'll actually loose addressable main memory, making the switch to 64 bit at that point VERY sensible.

In fact, upgrading to 64 bit, slapping a 1 gig card in, and upgrading to 4 gig ram. .will probably net you serious fps improvements.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22592451 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:40:44 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22592433 Duchess44 :

said by longstreet

said by Duchess44

said by longstreet

:

You have a graphics card right? 512 mb?

If you have 512mb graphics and 4 gig of ram . . .

500 gets addressed from the video and 3 gig of main memory gets addressed on top of that.

Totally addressed memory? == ~ 3.5 gig

You're wasting the last gig.

If you were using all of it, you'd see 4.5 gig addressed.

Yes, I do have a card like that. So you are saying I should just the the 3 gig ram?

K got it. Thank you for clearing it up. I will never use Vista 64. No use for it. What I have now works fine. I just want to be able to play WoW and get a decent FPS. And it has blown into this whole deal about memory and graphics cards and OS's (is that the correct term?)]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22592433 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:38:00 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22592422 howie : I just wanted to make it clear that you don't need to use a 64-bit OS if you use 4GB. Yes, not all of it's used but it is perfectly alright to do so. Sorry for any confusion but I thought some might think that you can't use Vista 32 with 4GB, period.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22592422 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:36:13 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22592414 longstreet :

said by Duchess44

said by longstreet

Yes, I do have a card like that. So you are saying I should just the the 3 gig ram?

If you don't want to upgrade to a 64 bit OS, then stick with 3 gig of ram. You can't benefit by putting more in.

If you do want to upgrade to a 64 bit OS, then you will benefit from putting MORE than 3 gig in the machine.

Whether or not you want to is up to you.

If you play wow, you don't need 4 gig. Q6600 + 512 video + 3 gig ram is more than enough.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22592414 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:34:09 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22592406 Duchess44 :

said by howie

:

Vista will see about 3.5GB of 4GB installed in a 32-bit OS. I use 2-2048MB sticks with Vista 32-bit.
»www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a···20145184
It was less than $50 for 4GB of PC6400 DDR2 800Mhz. RAM.
If and when I install Vista or Win 7 64-bit, It'll use all 4GB. At some point, I'll probably add 4GB (2-2GB sticks) when I switch to a 64 bit OS.
If I were you, I'd just buy a kit with 2-2GB modules.

[EDIT] I don't know if your system can use 2GB modules. Hopefully someone here does....

Right. That's what I am trying to figure out. I believe it can only do 1gig. It has 4 slots, total of 4gig of memory can be installed on it. So I would guess that it would be 1 gig sticks. ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22592406 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:33:05 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22592396 howie : It's totally FALSe... you DO NOT need to upgrade to 64 bit with 4GB. I have no idea where people hear this stuff.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22592396 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:31:43 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22592392 Duchess44 :

said by longstreet

Yes, I do have a card like that. So you are saying I should just the the 3 gig ram? ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22592392 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:31:12 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22592381 Duchess44 :

said by longstreet

:

If you have 32 bit Vista, do not install more than 3 gig main memory.

If you decide you want more memory than 3 gig, you need to upgrade to 64 bit.

Right. That's what I had read, but wanted to be sure of. ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22592381 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:29:14 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22592366 longstreet : You have a graphics card right? 512 mb?

If you have 512mb graphics and 4 gig of ram . . .

500 gets addressed from the video and 3 gig of main memory gets addressed on top of that.

Totally addressed memory? == ~ 3.5 gig

You're wasting the last gig.

If you were using all of it, you'd see 4.5 gig addressed.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22592366 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:26:15 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22592358 howie :

said by longstreet

:

If you have 32 bit Vista, do not install more than 3 gig main memory.

If you decide you want more memory than 3 gig, you need to upgrade to 64 bit.

Why not? Although I'm not using all 4GB of installed memory, I am using about 3.5GB of it... :huh:]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22592358 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:25:29 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22592349 longstreet : If you have 32 bit Vista, do not install more than 3 gig main memory.

If you decide you want more memory than 3 gig, you need to upgrade to 64 bit.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22592349 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:23:38 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22592336 imtim83 : I have 8 GB of ram but suggest if your a gamer to have at least 4 GB of ram. Though 2 to 3 GB of ram could be enough always best to be safe than sorry sense ram is so cheap. I like to multitask a lot. If I want to keep my game open while encoding I can. ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22592336 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:21:06 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22592153 howie : Vista will see about 3.5GB of 4GB installed in a 32-bit OS. I use 2-2048MB sticks with Vista 32-bit.
»www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a···20145184
It was less than $50 for 4GB of PC6400 DDR2 800Mhz. RAM.
If and when I install Vista or Win 7 64-bit, It'll use all 4GB. At some point, I'll probably add 4GB (2-2GB sticks) when I switch to a 64 bit OS.
If I were you, I'd just buy a kit with 2-2GB modules.

[EDIT] I don't know if your system can use 2GB modules. Hopefully someone here does.... ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22592153 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 15:51:39 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22591610 Duchess44 :

said by Daarken

:

Duchess44, please keep in mind that when you do purchase your new ram, you need to replace the existng ram with new ram also.
So basically you need to purchase 4 gigs of new ram, not just 1 gig. Sure your system will probably run if you used the old ram, however you will have system stability issues.

»www.crucial.com/store/mpartspecs···A5CA7304

Ok then...if I get two of these...would it work? I mean, I believe I only need 3 gig total, right? Because if Iget the max 4 gig, I will have to get Vista 64 bit. And why is it SO much more expensive at Newegg...

»www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi···er=PRICE]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22591610 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 14:24:00 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22591533 Daarken : Duchess44, please keep in mind that when you do purchase your new ram, you need to replace the existng ram with new ram also.
So basically you need to purchase 4 gigs of new ram, not just 1 gig. Sure your system will probably run if you used the old ram, however you will have system stability issues.
--
www.pointofexistence.com]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22591533 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 14:08:57 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22591506 Duchess44 : Ok got it and it did say which kind I have, and it says slot #2 and #4 are empty, and #1 and #3 have memory installed.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22591506 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 14:05:39 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22591470 Duchess44 :

said by Margolis

said by Duchess44

:

Ok could you please tell me where I find such information to post?
I do know that my card is a ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 512MB dedicated memory. And it is at 1440x900 resolution.

Ok it says "Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz"

And, which vid card would you recommend? I can not spend a lot of money on it...perhaps between $100-$200]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22591470 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 14:01:11 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22591427 praetoralpha : »www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

Get CPUz and the memory tab will tell you what you have, its speed, how many empty RAM slots you have, and more stuff that anyone should probably have to know.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22591427 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:52:40 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22591375 Margolis :

said by Duchess44

:

Ok could you please tell me where I find such information to post?
I do know that my card is a ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 512MB dedicated memory. And it is at 1440x900 resolution.

the video card is a big problem. the 2600 is not good enough to run at 1440x900 at a very high framerate. I would guess maybe 30fps tops, and dipping down into the teens if there is anything going on. And with a video card that old, I would guess that your cpu is also a bottleneck.

To find out your cpu, go to "control panel" and "system"]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22591375 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:43:28 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22591190 Duchess44 : K went to Crucial and visited their system checker and it said I need "DDR2 PC2 5300" memory. I visited Newegg and found these:
»www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi···g&Page=1

Will they work? And which is best?

PS...I really do appreciate all the help guys :)]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22591190 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:11:46 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22591181 Duchess44 :

said by Margolis

:

ok, what are your system specs? what kind of cpu? what video card? and what resolution?

More memory will not automatically give you higher fps. It will make the game run smoother when things get hairy though. But if you are having fps issues, it could be the cpu, or video card.

Ok could you please tell me where I find such information to post?
I do know that my card is a ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 512MB dedicated memory. And it is at 1440x900 resolution. ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22591181 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:10:37 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22591151 Margolis :

said by Duchess44

:

No, I am not very happy with the performance as it is. I asked because I needed to get the settings for the video tab ingame so that I could get a little better FPS. Then they started all this about my memory and video card being crap.

ok, what are your system specs? what kind of cpu? what video card? and what resolution?

More memory will not automatically give you higher fps. It will make the game run smoother when things get hairy though. But if you are having fps issues, it could be the cpu, or video card.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22591151 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:07:29 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22591093 Duchess44 :

said by Margolis

said by Duchess44

:

Ok ty. I have someone trying to tell me that the recommended is 3gb. I thought my comp ran just fine..including playing WoW..

No, I am not very happy with the performance as it is. I asked because I needed to get the settings for the video tab ingame so that I could get a little better FPS. Then they started all this about my memory and video card being crap.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22591093 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:00:17 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22591076 Duchess44 :

said by ydoucare

:

2 GB is fine (but more never hurts). Been running 2 GB here for a while on a gaming/web and graphic design machine and it runs good. Anyone that tells you 2 GB is not enough to "run" Windows Vista hasn't the slightest clue what they are talking about. Perhaps the people that are arguing with you are the type of morons that have 120 processes running in the background and wonder why their computer runs like shit. In any case, memory is cheap, so it wouldn't hurt to run more than 2 GB.

Oh I am going to get another 1gig, but I read somewhere that if you get more than that, you have to go to Vista 64-bit? True?]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22591076 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:58:36 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22591071 Duchess44 :

said by JohnDrenZ

:

»www.microsoft.com/windows/window···nts.aspx

»www.worldofwconline.com/content/···ents.php

Sweet! TYVM :)]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22591071 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:57:11 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22591031 Margolis :

said by Duchess44

:

Ok ty. I have someone trying to tell me that the recommended is 3gb. I thought my comp ran just fine..including playing WoW..

I can't comment on 3gb, but going from 2Gb to 4Gb of ram made a noticable improvement in WoW. But that is with vista 64 ultimate. With 32b vista, anything over 3Gb would be overkill though, do to the address limitations of 32bit. Video memory is also included in the total that can be addressed.

Another reason that some people go for 3Gb is that they are using a motherboard that uses triple channel memory, which means 3 sticks of ram. That makes 3Gb optimal. If your motherboard uses dual channel memory, then 2Gb makes sense, since there are no 1.5G memory sticks. As long as you are happy with the performance ignore the naysayers. ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22591031 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:52:07 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22591006 ydoucare : 2 GB is fine (but more never hurts). Been running 2 GB here for a while on a gaming/web and graphic design machine and it runs good. Anyone that tells you 2 GB is not enough to "run" Windows Vista hasn't the slightest clue what they are talking about. Perhaps the people that are arguing with you are the type of morons that have 120 processes running in the background and wonder why their computer runs like shit. In any case, memory is cheap, so it wouldn't hurt to run more than 2 GB.
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Asus P5N-E SLI|E4500|2 GB DDR2 800|8800GT|Audigy + Front Bay|Hauppauge PVR-150MCE|Vista Ultimate + XP Pro SP2 dual boot|Sony Vaio VGN-CR290|Sprint Mobile Broadband|Netgear WGR614v8]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22591006 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:48:55 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22590956 JohnDrenZ : »www.microsoft.com/windows/window···nts.aspx

»www.worldofwconline.com/content/···ents.php]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22590956 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:40:25 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22590940 Duchess44 : Strange that's exactly how mine looked when I took it. Only it was 1.37 instead of 1.35.

BTW..is that with or without WoW running?

And, where do I look on here to see what Memory I need to purchase?]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22590940 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:37:01 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22590938 howie : Vista Ultimate 32bit here.
4GB PC6400 DDR-2 800Mhz.
ATM, I am using ~1.35GB.

]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22590938 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:36:55 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22590830 dadkins : Vista Home Premium 32bit here.
3GB PC2-5300.
ATM, I am using 1.35GB.

As stated, 32bit will only address ~3.5GB.
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Think outside the Fox... Opera

]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22590830 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:18:27 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22590782 Duchess44 : Exactly. I couldn't believe my eyes when I read that. Well yes I can. It is the WoW forums, after all lol. I have never had an issue but I did uninstall and quit playing for about 2 months so I lost all of my video settings ingame. I was asking if anyone had that post from a while back that had all the video settins in it. Then they start jumping down my poor machine's throat lol.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22590782 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:08:36 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22590764 jabarnut : Yeah, I agree that adding more Ram (to a point), sure can't hurt and is one of the easiest and most effective upgrades you can make....but to flatly state that 2GB is "not enough RAM to run Windows Vista" is ridiculous.

It runs quite well on 2GB and seems to be the "sweet spot" for Vista, from what I've seen.
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I had a life once.....now I have a Computer and a Modem.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22590764 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:06:34 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22590763 Duchess44 :

said by John_W

:

RAM is dirt cheap. I paid just under $50 for 2 sticks of 2GB DDR2 for 4 total.

Newegg has some DDR2-800 on sale now for $37 for 4 GB.

I threw 4GB in my 32 bit machine Vista Ultimate computer(it was cheaper for me to put 4gb in than 3gb). It'll access 3.581GB of it and I am currently using 2.180GB of that right now, so adding a few more sticks to your machine won't hurt. It'll most likely help, and it is not that expensive.

NEWEGG! That's the place! LOL I couldn't think of the name to save me! LOL. Thanks. Now I just need to figure out how to see exactly which type of memory I need.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22590763 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:06:27 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22590743 John_W : RAM is dirt cheap. I paid just under $50 for 2 sticks of 2GB DDR2 for 4 total.

Newegg has some DDR2-800 on sale now for $37 for 4 GB.

I threw 4GB in my 32 bit machine Vista Ultimate computer(it was cheaper for me to put 4gb in than 3gb). It'll access 3.581GB of it and I am currently using 2.180GB of that right now, so adding a few more sticks to your machine won't hurt. It'll most likely help, and it is not that expensive.
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Team Discovery--BBR Team Helix--Cuz I Care!!]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22590743 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:02:59 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22590737 Duchess44 :

said by Airwolf

:

Depending on what speed of RAM you need.

Most computers come with DDR2-667, but if the current ones in there are DDR2-800 and you add in DDR2-667, that will drop them to the same speed.

Could you tell me how I can find out exactly which type of memory I need? And, I forget the site everyone uses for those types of things. On the tip of my tongue...grr! ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22590737 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:01:27 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22590729 Duchess44 : Yea, that's the WoW forums for you :)]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22590729 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:00:31 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22590717 jabarnut :

said by Duchess44

:

I have been told I do not have enough RAM to run Windows Vista. I have Vista home premium (32-bit) and I have 2 gig of RAM.
Thanks!!

That's pretty silly....I ran Vista Ultimate on one machine with 1GB of Ram for quite a while, and while it was a little slow in some respects, it ran just fine....and was still more than tolerable, even enjoyable.

I've since upped that particular machine to 2 GB (it's an older machine and that's all the Motherboard would take), and it runs great.
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I had a life once.....now I have a Computer and a Modem.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22590717 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 11:58:04 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22590699 Airwolf : Depending on what speed of RAM you need.

Most computers come with DDR2-667, but if the current ones in there are DDR2-800 and you add in DDR2-667, that will drop them to the same speed.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22590699 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 11:55:19 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22590679 Duchess44 : It couldn't hurt. Is it still inexpensive? I read at one time RAM was pretty cheap. Of course it's like the stock market..lol.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22590679 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 11:51:00 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22590652 Airwolf : It's up to you. If you want to play it safe, get 3GB.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22590652 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 11:46:35 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22590639 Duchess44 : Ok ty. They are still arguing with me, even though I went to the "can You Run It" site and it surpassed all the recommended settings for the game. Sometimes I think the forums is not a very good place for information.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22590639 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 11:44:00 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22590547 Airwolf : I've ran on 2GB just fine with Vista Home Premium 32bit.

3Gb would be a nice buffer for those moments where it's needed the odd time.

I helped pick out a computer for my sister with 3GB just in case, even though I know 2 is plenty for her.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22590547 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 11:22:48 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22590481 Duchess44 : Ok ty. I have someone trying to tell me that the recommended is 3gb. I thought my comp ran just fine..including playing WoW..]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22590481 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 11:09:21 EDT Re: Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22590465 Airwolf : 2GB is fine.

If you game, I would invest in another 2GB at least. However, you'll have to obtain a 64-bit copy of Vista to actually use 4GB and higher.

I wouldn't worry otherwise.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22590465 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 11:05:46 EDT Windows Vista and RAm http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22590426 Duchess44 : I have been told I do not have enough RAM to run Windows Vista. I have Vista home premium (32-bit) and I have 2 gig of RAM. Could someone please tell me if I have enough or not? Vista came on my computer so I would assume that it came with enough to run the darn thing.

Thanks!!]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22590426 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 10:58:27 EDT