Can I force shared video memory above 3Gb?

Discussion in 'CPU, Motherboards and Memory' started by XEyedBear, Dec 18, 2008.

  1. XEyedBear

    XEyedBear Geek Trainee

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    2 applications which I use (Photoshop and Nikon Capture NX2) need a lot of memory - more than the 2 Gb I have on my current system. I am looking at buying a replacement system which can have 4 Gb installed, but this has an NVIDIA GeForce 7050 GPU which uses shared memory - up to 512 Mb of it, I think.

    Bearing in mind the XP limit of 3 Mb, I am concerned that, after the GPU uses it's full allocation of 512 Mb of RAM, I will be left with only 2.5 Gb of RAM for my applications - which is not really a big enhancement to my current RAM resource. Is there some way that I can force the DVMT (Dynamic Video Memory Technology) to supply the GPU with RAM from the 3 Gb to 4 Gb range which Windows XP cannot use? This would then improve my RAM resource for applications by 50%.
     
  2. EquisTango

    EquisTango Geek Trainee

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    Windows XP will use up to 3 GB of the available RAM. Video memory should be taken from the available RAM before the OS boots. So if you have 4 GB of RAM with 512 MB of shared video memory, Windows XP should "see" 3.5 GB of available RAM but use only 3 GB.
    In other words, the video memory is taken from the system RAM, not from the Windows XP's memory space.

    A partial exception to this would be any video card with nVidia's TurboCache or ATI's HyperMemory technology. With these technologies, the video card driver _will_ use Windows XP's RAM to help the video card. This memory is not permanently used, but only as needed (when running 3D apps like games).

    As a side note, DMVT is an Intel technology (Graphics - Dynamic Video Memory Technology (DVMT) - How much video memory do I have?). As far as I know, nVidia AND ATI cards don't have DMVT; they use a fixed amount of video memory.

    Hope it helps
     

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