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Whats the GPU? lf its the x1400 then l think its like 128mb main memory + the rest is borrowed from the systems ram. At this point unless you have a high end card 512mb memory won't make a bit of difference.
what you system tells you under system properties is vram + hypermemory.... anyone with an Asus system w/ ati or nvidia graphics over the past year plus should see more memory listed in there than they know is dedicated.. I think those systems have 256mb..... the rest should be hypermemory.
If your video memory says 512, check your total RAM. If you have 1gb, then you should be left with 768mb of RAM if it is indeed 256mb dedicated and 256mb shared
System memory is only actually pulled if needed...... it's never going to affect your system performance because you're never going to have a system ram pull that high, while the graphics ram pull is high. Some programs want to pull from the graphics card rather than the system (ie: programs like autocad)... and if they are pulling from the graphics memory, it doesn't matter how much system memory you have, you'll get out of memory messages. Hypermemory almost tricks the programs into telling them that a lot more memory is available if needed and ONLY once the dedicated graphics ram is full and then it'll start pulling mb after mb.... so trust me, it's not a big deal at all and better left alone. The only problem I've seen in the last year is that companies will sell these systems are having 512mb or 768mb of video ram and since the system will show that it has it, they'll believe it and eventually someone will feel dupped and get ticked off......
Most of us know what Hypermemory is, but the fact remains that there are some games that need system memory as much or more than graphics memory. The Battlefield games are one example. I also don't like processor cycles being wasted on all this memory allocation factoring.
they don't take away any memory until it is needed. that is really the key point here. it will not use up any of the system memory unless it runs out vram. only then will it actually take away from the system memory.
... right.... this isn't even a concern... if you're in the need to pull from both system and video THAT much, then there isn't a notebook graphics card with enough dedicated memory to support you and probably not enough open dimms to support enough system ram.
We're talking about a situation like this......
256mb dedicated graphics ram
1024mb system ram
Say you're running a program like autocad that refuses to cache to the system ram....... 256mb is taken up by XP pro anyway..... so as you approach 256mb of dedicated graphics ram being eaten up (which is a lot for autocad), then you've got roughtly 770mb.. lets just say 700mb free.... Autocad either has the choice of saying, whoops, you're out of memory, or pull from the system memory.... so if it pulls 50mb, you're down to 650... big deal.
In a game, lets just go on the fact that you want to say BF2 pulls from both just soooooo much.... lets say it needs 512mb free to run.. ok..... and graphics wise, I know it doesn't even need 256mb, but lets say it needs 512mb.... ok, you can still do it.
I'd rather listen to someone actually explain why this wouldn't work in their situation and describe it based on what you know about hypermemory and what you learned from this thread....... that might actually get us to understand maybe a particular situation where this is a bad thing... but in my research and what I've tested and what I've heard..... there are no downsides whatsoever, yet not many upsides either..... it's a marketing thing and it does help is certain situations... but certainly doesn't hurt... unless you can prove ATI and Nvidia wrong..... then be my guest because I'm always open to learn something new.
Well the closest example I can come to is World of Warcraft. That game eats system memory for breakfast. I have 1.5GB of RAM in my desktop and WoW will use well over half of it when running. Now, the flip side is that I don't believe it would use 256MB of VRAM, although with the new weather effects and such it may come close.
**EDIT** Although now that I think about it a little longer, Justin does have a point. Most games will either be more GPU dependent, or RAM dependent, rarely both. I mean WoW will run on any video card if you give it enough system memory to use.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
