Shared System RAM

[Travis King]

http://img352.imageshack.us/img352/1007/weift8.jpg

Where it says shared system RAM, is this physical RAM that is *always* used
by the video card or is this something that is used as needed or what? (My
assumption is it's used as needed because 'dedicated system memory' shows
nothing.) Is there a way to change this amount and how will it affect my
performance? (Should I decrease it or increase it if it's even possible.)
Should I leave it where it is? Thanks.

 

[Richard Urban]

I should think that unless you are experiencing a problem that you can
attribute to the shared RAM, you should leave well enough alone. Don't
tamper with success.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Bill]

I should think that unless you are experiencing a problem that you
can attribute to the shared RAM, you should leave well enough alone.
Don't tamper with success.

???

No offense, but that's not an answer, and doesn't really help. It's
like saying that Vista has a sidebar, but you shouldn't tamper with
it.


You can't change it that I know of, nor would you want to.

Shared system memory is not dedicated video memory, which is used for
the GPU, and it's used in addition to video memory for buffering and
extensions when needed. Do a search for other messages with similar
words and you'll find previous posts on this topic.

But suffice it to say that shared memory is sort of like cached memory
for the hard drive. It's there to help improve video performance.

 

[Lang Murphy]

Travis,

I -think-, and I'm sure someone will flame me if I'm incorrect, but I think
Shared video ram is assigned to the video subsystem from the get go, i.e.,
the OS doesn't dole it out on an "as needed" basis. So... if you have 512MB
RAM and 32MB is shared with the video subsystem, you then have a baseline of
480MB RAM available to the system at boot time. One of my systems has 32MB
dedicated vid ram and 32MB shared vid ram. I am assuming the dedicated RAM
is just that... 32MB's of RAM on the MB or in vid chip or somewhere and the
32MB of shared RAM is coming out of my system RAM. Could be wrong... but
that's my SWAG at present. Don't take it as gospel.

You can check your BIOS to see if you can change the amount of system RAM
that is made available to your video system. I have an eMachines here that
has that capability...

Lang

 

[Dr. Heywood Floyd]

That's typical MS talk. It's getting to the point that anyone using an
MS product will be forced to let MS decide what/how to use it and will
even be chastised for asking questions.

 

[Richard Urban]

For Bill and the Doctor:

For 5 years now people have been fooling around with the pagefile in Windows
XP. I have not really seen a case where a person can manage the pagefile
better that the operating system can. But I have repaired a multitude of
computers where the owner has screwed up the computer operation by altering
the setting.


--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Richard G. Harper]

The correct answer is ... there is no correct answer! Or at least no
general, generic correct answer, anyway.

Some video display chipsets, especially older ones, will allocate the amount
of memory they can allocate and that's it - it's locked into video use,
can't be re-allocated, can't be released to the OS if needed.

Some video display chipsets, especially the newest ones from ATI, will do
both - will allocate memory that's locked into the display chipset's use (or
come with memory on the card that's dedicated to graphic use) and can
allocate and release more memory if needed by the system. This feature can
usually be enabled or disabled but I don't know of any way to force the
release of the "shared" memory manually.

--
Richard G. Harper [MVP Shell/User] (e-mail address removed)
* NEW! Catch my blog ... http://msmvps.com/blogs/rgharper/
* PLEASE post all messages and replies in the newsgroups
* The Website - http://rgharper.mvps.org/
* HELP us help YOU ... http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm

 

[Mike Hall - MS MVP Windows Shell/User]

Richard

You and me both..

For Bill and the Doctor:

For 5 years now people have been fooling around with the pagefile in
Windows XP. I have not really seen a case where a person can manage the
pagefile better that the operating system can. But I have repaired a
multitude of computers where the owner has screwed up the computer
operation by altering the setting.


--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[MICHAEL]

While I tend to agree with you about the pagefile,
I don't see how adjusting its size could screw up
a computer all that bad. Setting it too low might
cause some slowness, but to make matters bad
enough where you have "repaired a multitude" just
doesn't make sense.

I have adjusted my pagefile every which way possible,
and I have yet to see any difference between my custom
settings and just letting Windows manage it. I think it's one
of those "tweaks" people just think provides better performance.
With today's computers having more RAM and especially,
with Vista have the ReadyBoost, messing with the pagefile is
just a waste of time. Maybe, back in the day, the tweak provided
some benefit, a benefit that might have been *noticeable*.

But, some folks swear by it. Whatever makes them happy, I reckon.
It's sort of like users who swear defragging all the time helps them-
while defragging is good to do every so often, it's not something that
most users need to do every day or every other day- it just isn't going
to make that much of a difference, were talking milliseconds. Of course,
there are those who use a registry cleaner as part of their regular
maintenance, lawd have mercy, what a dangerous tool that is. Perhaps,
in helping with some specific problem a user may have, otherwise, registry
cleaners are just totally unnecessary. But, that perception that they
are needed is out there. I remember when I was beta testing Windows
OneCare in its early stages, users were screaming for a registry cleaner.
The discussions were heated, I believe the developers at the time said
they would be including one because that's what the users wanted. I haven't
tested WOC in awhile, I don't know if they ever put one in there- I hope not.
Especially, because of the type of users WOC is aimed at. Non-technical
users who have no business messing with the registry. Oh well, I reckon
like many of us, folks just have to learn the hard way. Live and learn.

Take care,

Michael

 

[Tim]

You may want to check your Bios settings. The amount of memory that gets
allocated to video is frequently controlled by a setting called "Frame
Buffer Size".

 

[Kerry Brown]

This is a hardware setting that is set in your BIOS. It is fairly new and
different BIOS' may have different methods for setting it. It is most common
on notebooks so far. The video chip has some dedicated video RAM. It can
also use system RAM. You'd have to check the documentation for your
motherboard/computer to see how to make any changes.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

There are a lot of configuration (hardware and software) tips and tricks I
learned in the Win95 days that I see continuing on as urban legends in the
advice about XP and Vista given in forums and newsgroups.

Perhaps one way to take ownership of something new is to impose your will on
it instead of spending the time it takes to become experienced.

It has alwasy been hard for me to suspend belief and let a new OS prove
itself to me. I find it tough not to rush in and start fiddling with the
new system with my favorite hacks. It was hardest for me to move from the
Win9x branch to XP. With every new XP installation I found myself making
fewer and fewer changes to the defaults. I may be getting better because I
find myself letting Vista just take care of itself.

 

[Kerry Brown]

This is very true. Another similar lesson that is very hard to learn is that
when working on someone's computer you have to remember it is their
computer. They probably have it set up the way it is because that is how
they like it. As long as it works that way don't change it so it is set up
how you like it.

In other words, don't fiddle with someone else's computer. Fix it but don't
change it.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

That was a hard lesson for me to learn back when I was selling computers
twenty years ago.

It isn't too hard to tell someone who has had fifteen years of Windows
experience from someone who has had the same year fifteen times, is it?

 

[Kerry Brown]

 

[Travis King]

The only option I see in my motherboard's manual is "Aperture size". By
default it's set to 128MB. Configuration Options: 32MB, 64MB, 128MB,
256MB, and 512MB.

 

[Richard G. Harper]

That's an entirely different setting and won't make a difference for the
purposes of this discussion.

--
Richard G. Harper [MVP Shell/User] (e-mail address removed)
* NEW! Catch my blog ... http://msmvps.com/blogs/rgharper/
* PLEASE post all messages and replies in the newsgroups
* The Website - http://rgharper.mvps.org/
* HELP us help YOU ... http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm

 

[Kerry Brown]

Some BIOS' have an advanced screen. You may have to press a special key to
access. It may also be that you can't change the setting. If it's not in the
documentation then contact the manufacturer's tech support.

 

[Dr. Heywood Floyd]

I've read thousands of 'problem(s)' posts in the IE newsgroup just since
IE7 came out. Most are from folks that trusted MS to take care of their
computers - read Automatic Updates. When the IE7 update works the
MS-speak is 'look-see - no problems'. When the automatic update doesn't
work the MS-speak is 'what an idiot. Don't you know you should have
done <insert any/many of a few dozen duties> before you installed'?

 

[Dr. Heywood Floyd]

WLOC is not going to be much use to anyone unless they allow back-ups to
an INternal HD, allow the choice of which drives to defrag and put a
'disable/enable' feature in TuneUp.



MICHAEL wrote:

<SNIP>

I remember when I was beta testing Windows

OneCare in its early stages, users were screaming for a registry cleaner.
The discussions were heated, I believe the developers at the time said
they would be including one because that's what the users wanted. I
haven't
tested WOC in awhile, I don't know if they ever put one in there- I hope
not.
Especially, because of the type of users WOC is aimed at. Non-technical
users who have no business messing with the registry.

<SNIP>