1407MB shared RAM???

[Gudmund Liebach Nielsen]

I dont understand that Windows reports 1407MB of shared RAM with my graphics
card. My graphics card is NVIDIA GeForce 7500 LE with 256MB RAM dedicated on
it. And the card is supposed to share only 256MB RAM with the system.
Alltogether is reported 1663MB RAM of which 1407MB RAM is shared. Can
someone explain my why this happens? I think it is strange and dont know
why.

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Your video card and Windows Vista are designed to share system RAM, but only
when you need to do so. For instance, if you are running an application
(such as a graphics intensive game) that requires more memory than that which
is available on your video card, the system kicks in to allow it to use
general computer RAM. However, when your graphics usage has no need for
system RAM, it's available for other uses. It's a very good technology.


--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows Shell/User

---------------------------------------------------------------

:

I dont understand that Windows reports 1407MB of shared RAM with my graphics
card. My graphics card is NVIDIA GeForce 7500 LE with 256MB RAM dedicated on
it. And the card is supposed to share only 256MB RAM with the system.
Alltogether is reported 1663MB RAM of which 1407MB RAM is shared. Can
someone explain my why this happens? I think it is strange and dont know
why.

 

[Andrew McLaren]

I dont understand that Windows reports 1407MB of shared RAM with my
graphics card. My graphics card is NVIDIA GeForce 7500 LE with 256MB RAM
dedicated on

Hej Gudmund,

Carey's answer is correct. In addition, you may be interested in this short
paper from Microsoft which describes how memory is used by the graphics
system in Vista. In XP and previous versions, the graphics driver could only
use real memory on the graphics card. In Vista's WDDM, the graphics driver
uses a virtual memory system, which includes both the real graphics memory,
and a backing store of main system memory.

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/display/graphicsmemory.mspx

As Carey says, it's very cool. It's a good thing.

Vi ses,

 

[Gudmund Liebach Nielsen]

Thank you for your responses; what I don't understand is that my graphics
adapter is able to share 256MB of RAM, but Windows report a lot more.

....Gudmund

 

[Gudmund Liebach Nielsen]

OK, I now know why so much RAM is reported as shared system memory; in the
document it is explained how this amount of RAM is calculated. So everything
is in order. Only a little strange as the graphics card is supposed to only
share 256MB of memory.

....Gudmund