Recovering ram from graphics card in vista

[EllTheGamer]

I noticed that my 256mb x800xl is getting 768mb of shared memory (from MY RAM ) whilst i am in vista, i didn't see any options to change this. I tried searching google for an answer but could not pin down an accurate search term. Can anyone help?

[TiG]

Ell sorry but how do you figure out your graphics card is getting 768mb of your memory?.

You sure its not the standard vista setup of grabbing resources to do its pre caching etc.

TiG

[EllTheGamer]

[kopite]

Isnt there usualy an option in the bios to sort out how much ram the graphics get?

[PieEater]

From what I can see on the web the Shared System Memory is available to both the system and the graphics card if it is free. If any of it is in use by the system then that portion is not available to the graphics card. The idea is that Vista allows you to minimise applications / games that are using the graphics card memory and start up another graphics intensive program by caching the graphics card memory for the minimised application into system memory.

There's probably a way of disabling this feature but unless you're having problems then it's probably best to leave it as is.

[EllTheGamer]

I like to have peoiple over and play games across the network and since i have the most powerful system i host the games. Unfortunately this desires a lot more RAM then usual and in XP this was fine i didn't even need a page file. But in this case it uses all the ram and then it even uses a 1.5x ram sized page file and the games crash, thats why its such a nuisance.

[TiG]

Ell, i can't see that the graphics card is using it, its not dedicated to the graphics card, it is showing whats available in available system memory.

Are you sure that it is this graphics situation that is making the games crash?. I don't believe you will be able to sort the appearance of this memory.

I've just checked on my dad's vista machine and its the same and its had 0 issue with games. The shared memory listed isn't used for the graphics ever, and i think you've probably got a redherring there

TiG

[EllTheGamer]

The game is crashing due to the lack of memory available to it so even if the g card is not using it (i doubt if it is its being utilized effectively) it is not free to the os, i have no troubles playing games its just when playing LAN games especially rts games where i need to keep information about LOTS of units it runs out of memory to store that in and the game crashes with the appropriate error messages, i have had no problems with even higher settings (more units) in xp as i have had all my RAM

[kalniel]

I agree with the TiG here, the graphics card isn't exclusively using this memory (it can't). I think it's more likely to be the reserved memory area (that counts down from the 4gb limit).

In anycase, you should not be running out of memory with 2gb of RAM, regardless of whether this is being taken up - I only know of one RTS that even comes close to 2gb usage, and that game doesn't produce a nice error when it crashes (Supremem Commander).

I really think this is a case the game not being all that well suited to Vista, so it's more of a bug with the game than a problem with your system. If you want to prove it's the RAM or not, monitor memory use in task manager while running the game - you should be able to see how much the game is using and see the trace just before the crash.

[EllTheGamer]

Battle for middle earth 2 is enough to use all of 2gb on a very slim build of xp crashing with a dx error out of memory, and pagefile notifications from windows in the tray about the page files need to be expanded temporarily. This is one of the games in question.

edit: I know that is isn't possible for it to use it, the technology is not implemented into the mainstream only exclusive cards (hypermemory and turbo cache) albeit its terrible anyway. It's just not releasing the memory to my system.

[OilSheikh]

I have personally noticed Vista to misread my GPU RAM.

Calling my 128 MB card as 384 MB in dxdiag???