MY GRAPHICS DRIVER REPORT............................

Driver Version: 6.14.10.4764
Operating System: Windows XP* Professional, Service Pack 2 (5.1.2600)
Default Language: English
DirectX* Version: 9.0
Physical Memory: 247 MB
Minimum Graphics Memory: 8 MB
Maximum Graphics Memory: 128 MB
Graphics Memory in Use: 9 MB
Processor: x86
Processor Speed: 3065 MHZ
Device Revision: 04

Accelerator in Use: Intel® 82915G/GV/910GL Express Chipset Family
Video BIOS: 3402

IF I HAVE 128MB OF MEMORY, WHY IS ONLY 9 MB IN USE?
HOW CAN I INCREASE IT TO MAXIMUM?

Well...it seems that many Windows versions/functions...don't need more than 8MB of RAM.

The additional amounts of video RAM have been added to accommodate visual effects/functions which have been included to deal with 3D, games, and other functions which stress motion and the depiction of such. IMO, the vast amounts of RAM which video cards have today (I remember having 4MB video cards with Win 98) are probably due to the increase influence of gaming and the eye candy which MS seems to love so much now (IMO).

You can see a more detailed view at Video memory mysteries - http://www.dansdata.com/gz014.htm

For the things that a casual user does on a PC...8MB still would work fine, IMO. I believe that gamers are the major group who actually experience the real values of the video graphics we have today, the rest of us are just unknowing beneficiaries of capabilities we will never exploit.

You may find this interesting, http://www.directron.com/howtochoosvi.html

Louis

Assuming that you have onboard video, keep in mind that if you increase the RAM in your onboard video chip you'll take that much away from your system RAM. The best thing to do is update your system RAM as much as you can afford, then go into the BIOS and increase you video ram

You can also get a graphics card with its own RAM for cheap. Tho system RAM will be cheaper and help you more all around. If you're gaming even if it used the max 128MB you're still gonna feel some pain. check out www.newegg.com and your bank statement and see what you can do.

Intel onboard video dynamically "grabs" system memory as required. At boot, 8M is always allocated, so the basic 2D functions can display the desktop. Normally in the BIOS setup a maximum figure can be specified, on your system it seems to be set at 128M. There may be a range of choices in the BIOS setup menu, 128M is certainly adequate for most requirements, but may be a bit high considering the system has 256M of RAM. However, the graphics subsystem only allocates as much extra memory beyond the 8M as it needs for current purposes, leaving as much memory as possible for running Windows and applications.