VRAM increase by adding RAM

[dill3377]

Specs Before Upgrades: Specs After Upgrades:
1GB of Ram 4GB of Ram
Under 32mb onboard graphics Just over 1GB of VRAM
Intel Pentium D Intel Pentium D

160GB HDD 160GB HDD

The window that pops up at start up told me before all the upgrades that I
have 850mb of RAM, even though I had 1GB. The second I added my graphics card
it said I had 1022mb of RAM. Now I go under directx diagnostics to check my
stuff and it says my VRAM is 1284 mb, which made no sense. Then I got 4GB of
RAM today and it said, under dxdiag, that I have 3GB of RAM and 2288 mb of
VRAM, please tell me how this is possible?

 

[Ramone]

Exactly which graphics card did you purchase? Is this 32 or 64 bit Vista?

Ramone

 

[Bender]

System ram can be taken away from being available for the system and be used
to add to the video ram.
Usually you make adjustments to the settings in the bios.
Onboard graphics is what is built into the video card. You can add to this
amount by taking ram away from your motherboard ram, through a bios setting.

On 32 bit windows even with 4 GB installed, you can usually see from 3.2 to
about 3.5 GB of ram. You will have to use 64 bit windows to see the whole 4
GB of ram.