MSI GeForce 7300 LE w/ TurboCache Supporting 512MB (PCI-E, 256MB)

This is the video card I have.
It's very good. I like it.

One question: dxdiag says I have 512mb Video RAM, but the card is listed with 256. What does that "Supporting 512mb" mean?

Do i have 256mb, or 512!?

SOURCE

Seems that it'll take up some of your system memory too (your RAM that installed on your motherboard), much like onboard graphics doo.

Your card is 256 mb ram. It gets it's "512 mb card" from the cards ability to share the system memory (ram). Good news is that your card will utilize 512mb of ram (256 on the card and 256 of the system memory), bad news is that if it does take up your system memory (or even part of it) then that's less memory that the rest of your system has to utilize.

Also, I believe anything with LE in the name uses system ram. Just though you might want to know for future references .

That's interesting.

But dxdiag reads memory as 1024MB, and video still as 512. I only have 1gb installed for system ram. On my old computer, it showed 224MB because the video card was shared.

Shouldn't it come up then as 256 of that 1024 used?

It reads that because your gfx card isn't using that extra system memory. It shows up as 512 just because that's how it's read (for lack of a better term). When dxdiag reads the memory on the card, the card tells it that it's got 512 mb of ram, even though it's only really got 256. Since it's not using up any of the system memory, your system memory tells dxdiag that it's got 1024.

Does that make sense?

Just to muddy the waters a bit, there's some changes in how Windows views video memory (it's most evident in Vista) - so the counting of what's memory and what's not is changing.

I'm reading an article on the WDDM driver model and it's impact on graphics adaptors right now. Once the headache goes away I might even be able to understand a bit of it! I'll let y'all know if I do.

Soo.. I'm not crazy?

Then How much Memory do I have for my video card!

Back from the article....

Windows views several types of video memory. It only displays certain types and configurations (that's why the numbers vary) - and how it counts it varies also.

I think that there's settings in the BIOS (either the "commit" settings or the "aperature") that'll affect this - but I'm guessing here.

The article describes 4 types of memory for video:
Total Available Graphics Memory (that's everything)
Dedicated Video Memory
System Video Memory
Shared Video Memory

Even discreet video cards can use Shared Video memory - it just may not be visible to you, the user. Some video cards will report more dedicated memory than the card actually has - this is usually because it has Shared memory reserved for it's use.

Shared memory is of 2 basic types:
BIOS controlled
Driver controlled

The differences between the 2 have an impact on the amounts shown in the different settings.

It seems that DirectX is the most reliable method - but it's not 100% certain in XP. DX10 "should" solve a lot of these issues.

Finally, it's the Windows System Assessment Tool (WinSAT) that checks video memory and turns on/off Aero in Vista.

So....No, you're not crazy (unless reading all this has driven you there). How much video memory do you have? I dunno - but a look at the settings in your BIOS, in dxdiag, in the display adaptor properties, and in the system info tool will give you a start at figuring out what you have for each of the categories of memory that I described above.