graphics card problems with ati radeon x300

[Guest]

Hi All,
I've only just installed Vista, and am having problems with my graphics
card, an ATI Radeon x300 with 128 MB RAM....Vista only detects 32 MB RAM, and
i have tried upgrading my drivers to the Catalyst ones on ATI's site, but
still the same...

Anyone got any suggestions?

I'm running the x64 version on a Dell Dimension 5100, 2.8GHz P4 HT, 1 GB RAM
with two SATA hard drives...all the drivers are Vista defaults except my
sound card, which is an XP Pro x64 driver (although it works fine)

Thanks

 

[Tom Scales]

Hi All,
I've only just installed Vista, and am having problems with my graphics
card, an ATI Radeon x300 with 128 MB RAM....Vista only detects 32 MB RAM,
and
i have tried upgrading my drivers to the Catalyst ones on ATI's site, but
still the same...

Anyone got any suggestions?

I'm running the x64 version on a Dell Dimension 5100, 2.8GHz P4 HT, 1 GB
RAM
with two SATA hard drives...all the drivers are Vista defaults except my
sound card, which is an XP Pro x64 driver (although it works fine)

Thanks

My guess is that you have an X300 that uses 'Hypermemory'. This means that
it really only has 32mb and the other 96mb are 'stolen' from main memory.

 

[Guest]

Hmmm....that's a bit sneaky, cos dell sold it to me as 128 MB...
is there a way to get my 96 mb back (or perhaps even more)?
thanks

 

[JW]

Check for BIOS settings that control the amount of Main memory that can be
used. The Intel onboard Graphics Chips have BIOS settings for the maximaum
amount that can be allocated and maybe the same technique is used for the
ATI onboard chips.

 

[Tom Scales]

No. I like Dell, but this is an area where they are very deceptive. None
of the other majors claim 128MB for the Hypermemory cards.