Author Topic: Vid Mem Used (Read 355 times)

unklerob · « **on:** January 19, 2008, 01:30:45 PM »

Sorry if this is a report - I tried to search without luck...

I recently lost my harddrive on my AHII machine, and tried to bring another PC online in the interim to continue playing.

The PC has an onboard Intel graphics processor, and I can dedicate over 200MB to it in the BIOS. However on the Video Performace display on the gameplay screen the most shown used is 4Mb.

I actually have seen this while using a NVIDA Quadro FX 2500M on my laptop as well (although video performance on the laptop doesn't seem to lack).

Is there a setting somewhere to change the amount of VidMem AHII uses?

Thanks

Wes14 · « **Reply #1 on:** January 19, 2008, 02:24:29 PM »

The VidMem shown in AH sometimes isn't accurate.

unklerob · « **Reply #2 on:** January 19, 2008, 03:39:13 PM »

Meant to say "repost" above (can't edit)

OOZ662 · « **Reply #3 on:** January 20, 2008, 05:17:53 AM »

It's rarely accurate any more. They go by what the driver is telling them and drivers today don't usually report anywhere near to correct numbers.

goober69 · « **Reply #4 on:** January 20, 2008, 11:09:17 AM »

i can tell you from expereince an onboard gpu is not the way to run ah. lol
i upgraded for 100$ to a nvidia 6200 and i bought a gig of ram,
now i actauly have decent frame rates and a little eye candy to go with it.
i was lucky though my intergrated gpu would run ah for 8 player otherwise i never would have gotten so addicted....

ah where is my fix i need my fiiiiiixxxx

OOZ662 · « **Reply #5 on:** January 20, 2008, 11:53:31 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by goober69
i can tell you from expereince an onboard gpu is not the way to run ah. lol

Well, yes, but that wasn't the question, so I didn't answer it so late at night.

Onboard video chips work as well as how much you pay for them (less than $0.02 for in Intel graphics chip). They actually contain no GPU or RAM. They mooch a specified "size" off of both the system RAM and CPU (even if the card doesn't need x% of the CPU or x% of the RAM, it keeps it reserved). Same goes for onboard sound chipsets. Expansion-slot versions of both card types have their own RAM and processor built into the chip itself. That way the only system resources being used are the ones needed to push the data around (which is required for onboard chips too).

unklerob · « **Reply #6 on:** January 21, 2008, 01:28:57 PM »

Thanks for the responses. I was desparate to get a system up and running while waiting for my old system's new harddrive to come in.

I thought perhaps I could squeeze a little more performance out of the onboard, as it was only registering 4 MB Video Mem being used.

I'm now semi-running on a laptop. See my active "Vista Warp" thread - and please offer help there.

I can't believe how addicted to the game I've gotten. Bless my wife for putting up with the computer carcasses all over the house this weekend, left during attempts to get back in the air!

Skuzzy · « **Reply #7 on:** January 21, 2008, 03:50:05 PM »

Onboard video chips depend on the CPU for all the programmning work for the video. Video cards have their own microprocessors which offload so much of the work from the CPU and are able to run in parallel with the CPU.

Onboard video chips have to stop when the CPU is busy with other things. Onboard video chips are simply not good enough to run the game well. It is a processing issue, and has little to nothing to do with the amount of video RAM used, which onboard video chips do not have anyway. They are stealing from system RAM and everything they have to access their RAM, the CPU has to wai and vice-versa.

It is a configuration which promotes warps.