Hello,

I Recently received my 8800GT but when looking at it in Nv Panel it's shows something to do with shared memory -> [img=http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/1821/graphicscardqy4.th.jpg] <- I know the card has 512mb dedicated memory, but was wondering what the shared memory and total available memory is for ?

Could you post a screenshot?

Billy3

this is just a guess, but i think you are seeing the same memory that's missing when you have 4 gigs on a 32 bit OS

windows has to map memory for the video?

I don't think the video card relies on it as much as the OS, everything goes thru the northbridge and system ram anyway

So when the card runs out of dedicated memory, it's starts using system memory ?

I think it's always using both, dedicated is so much faster

say you have a game that's trying to load a gig of scenery, video memory can't hold it all, the hard drive or optical drive can't feed it as fast as you can move/look around a corner, system ram acts as a buffer

btw how much system ram are you running?

Currently running with 2gig ram, but thinking about adding another gig to help when gaming

what's your swapfile size?

I've no idea, where would i find it ?

Yes, I used to have a card like this. It uses system ram when necessary (when it runs out of its own). But it usually allocates a large chunk even when you aren't gaming.

I have a 8600GTS and it does this, as did my old 6600.

I seriously doubt that another gig of ram will make the machine faster though. I run a whole bunch of stuff in the background while playing games, and I have yet to use more than 1.5G of my 2G.

Im on Vista Ultimate.

Billy3

the 3 finger salute brings up task manager

you can monitor page file usage history there and if it increases dramatically then more ram will help with an application, if not then the extra ram is a waste

Alright, Appreciate the help.