jagged edges/card problem?

[MrRiplEy[H]]

And if so, then how could a 4GB card like this one even be viable?  Your 4GB 32-bit address space - 1GB for the system - 4 GB for video memory would leave you at a -1 GB available for applications.

Ever heard of a 64-bit OS?

Every peripheral reserves its chunk from the addressable 4GB and you just can't run many devices with large memories while on 32-bit OS.

[BaldEagl]

I just did some research for you and you do need that PCP&C PSU for Dell.  I read a couple of threads where people installed it and are running without issue after recieving the same bogus warnings from Dell tech support that you got.

What!???  It's been awhile since I last delved into video subsystem design, but last I knew (unless you have a crappy onboard video system that uses system memory for video - i.e. many laptops and low-end systems from commodity manufacturers like Dell) the video memory doesn't take up system memory space - the video card is accessed via a aperture (usually 256 MB).  Did they change the architecture somewhere along the line and I missed it?

And if so, then how could a 4GB card like this one even be viable?  Your 4GB 32-bit address space - 1GB for the system - 4 GB for video memory would leave you at a -1 GB available for applications.

http://www.techpowerup.com/95445/ASUS_Designes_Own_Monster_Dual-GTX_285_4_GB_Graphics_Card.html

I'm not sure how that card would run, especially considering no 32 bit application can address more than 2 Gb of memory.

What I do know is that I built a (at the time) nearl top tier system a year ago March.  System:

Coolermaster Cavalier (Mid-Tower ATX)
EVGA NVidia NForce 780i  (BIOS P08/Driver 15.25)
Intel E6750 Conroe @ 3.2Ghz (1600 FSB/4 Mb L2 cache)
Kingston HyperX DDR2 800 4x1Gb (4-4-4-12 @ 2.0V)
EVGA 8800 GTS G92 512 (Driver 185.85)
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Pro (Driver 5.12.6.1186)
PC Power & Cooling S75QB 750W PSU (+12V @ 60A Single Rail)
Seagate Barracuda 250 Gb SATA HD (Boot)
Seagate Barracuda 250 Gb SATA HD (Storage)
2x Seagate NS Series 500 Gb SATA HD (Back-up)
Asus SATA 20x DVD+R DVD Burner
Asus SATA DVD-ROM
Microsoft Windows XP Pro With SP3
LG 22" 2ms Widescreen LCD
Klipsch Promedia 78 watts 2.1 Speaker

Windows currently recognizes 2.75 Gb of my system memory.  This is consistant with Windows 32 bit maximum memory recognition of 4 Gb minus allocation for video memory, USB ports, motherboard and other system needs resulting in 3.25-3.75 Gb recognized in most systems.  I put a second 8800 in this machine in SLI and my available system memory dropped to 2.25 Gb.  I ended up pulling that card out because I couldn't enable vsync and couldn't stand the screen tearing while gaming.

So yes, video memory is counted as addressable memory by Windows.

I haven't seen a video aperture setting since the days of AGP (which I still have in an old Dell).

[Ghastly]

So you are saying that with PCI-E they did away with the aperture-based addressing and instead they expose the entire GPU video memory of the card to the system memory bus?

I'm not saying they didn't - just that if so, I wasn't aware of it - and it doesn't seem to be well publicized, so I wanted confirmation if so.

<S>

[flatiron1]

This is weird, I had tried updating my card drivers when this problem started and it said all drivers up to date. Tried it again today and it updated drivers and everything is back to normal now. Thanks for all your help and I am sure I can use  the info again in the future.

[AirFlyer]

Good to hear ya got everything in order. Always fun to run into your A6M from time to time.