Disable Advanced Graphics

[Skuzzy]

Bizarre.  How about the BIOS?  Something could have been left from the previous configuration in the BIOS.

[Bino]

Bizarre.  How about the BIOS?  Something could have been left from the previous configuration in the BIOS.

Hmmm...   hadn't thought of that.  That *shouldn't* do anything, but I'll clear my settings from the CMOS by popping the battery out, and see what happens.  Stay tuned.

[Skuzzy]

Hmmm...   hadn't thought of that.  That *shouldn't* do anything, but I'll clear my settings from the CMOS by popping the battery out, and see what happens.  Stay tuned.

Clearing it may not help now, as Windows has already loaded up the registry with the initial information it gathered during the installation.  Meaning, you might actually have to re-install Windows again, or try doing a repair install to see if the problem is cleared.

[Bino]

I went through the BIOS screens and the ASUS documentation with a fine-tooth comb: there is *nothing* in there that refers to video RAM size.  I have posted a query on the Microsoft Community forums, and also entered a support ticket with the video card maker, XFX.  Stay tuned...

[Skuzzy]

Video RAM size will not be fixed in the BIOS, the graphics aperture size could be.  There could also be settings associated with your previous crossfire configuration which have no outside interface.

Just trying to figure out how your computer could act different from every other system I have run into.

[Bino]

Video RAM size will not be fixed in the BIOS, the graphics aperture size could be.  There could also be settings associated with your previous crossfire configuration which have no outside interface.

Just trying to figure out how your computer could act different from every other system I have run into.

From googling this issue, it seems that DxDiag and/or DirectX does, from time to time, under-report video RAM.  No good answer as to why this should be has been posted on any of the forums that I have found, just the usual worthless blather about updating the motherboard BIOS, downloading the latest AMD drivers, etc.

[Bino]

According to tech support at XFX, the folks who made my video card, 1.) GPU-Z actually *examines* the VRAM to come up with its byte count, it doesn't merely read a string off the video card BIOS, and 2.) DxDiag has known issues with properly seeing the VRAM on the 7950 card.  

I hate Windows today.

[Skuzzy]

According to tech support at XFX, the folks who made my video card, 1.) GPU-Z actually *examines* the VRAM to come up with its byte count, it doesn't merely read a string off the video card BIOS, and 2.) DxDiag has known issues with properly seeing the VRAM on the 7950 card.  

I hate Windows today.

And yet, my 7950 works just fine.  All 3GB of the RAM is shown.  GPU-Z does not do anyone any good as it does not use the interface DirectX does to manage video RAM.  It showing all the RAM available is only good for GPU-Z, and is not going to help anything else.

I would not be concerned with the numbers if they were not also reflecting the performance issues you are having.  Your card acts just like it has 256MB of video RAM.  

The game is at the mercy of DirectX, and the video card driver, as it pertains to video RAM utilization and/or allocation.

[morfiend]

 Roy,

 I have the same card as Bino and I get the same memory readout as you do. I have been experiencing some anomalies with the textures and framerate drops.

  Seems strange that I have to disable many of the eyecandy effects to have a smooth running game.  I've been hoping for a driver update to help with some of this but I'm wondering if I should roll back the drivers instead?

  Hopefully Bino can solve his issue and point me in the right direction.


   

[Skuzzy]

I have heard newer drivers for this card have been a bit of a problem.  I am using the drivers that came with mine.  Although, my Sapphire came with a factory overclock.

I have not seen any type of texture issues at all and the performance has been consistent with the performance level of the card.  That is to say, it cannot run with everything maxed out, which I expected.

[Bino]

No joy.

I upgraded the motherboard BIOS, then cleared the CMOS by replacing the CR2032 battery, and then did yet another full re-install of Windows and the AMD drivers.

I still see conflicting reports from various Windows components about how much VRAM this 7950 card has:

DxDiag
    734 Mb
msinfo32
    1.0 GB
"control panel... display... screen resolution... advanced settings"
    3072 MB

[Skuzzy]

That is so bizarre. 

I cannot begin to speculate any further as to what is causing the issue.  I am out of ideas.

[Bino]

Here is the gist of a reply I got from XFX:

"...
The reason DXdiag shows incorrect memory is because the program hasnt
been updated to be 64bit. Its 32bit. That means the program can only read a maximum of 4096mb of memory
( http://www.ehow.com/info_8405314_define-32bit-operating-system.html ) . On the DXDiag report display memory
normally equals `Dedicated memory + Shared memory`. Dedicated memory is the memory on the card (so this is indeed
being reported correctly), shared memory is the amount of ram windows allows the card to access. Add those together
and you get total display memory. Since your two values are at 3043 and 1787, your total video memory is actually
4830mb. Since the max DXdiag can read is 4096 you only see whats left. 4830 - 4096 = 734 . An easy thing you can
do to see what I am talking about is to get your memory to 4gb or less. So remove all sticks of memory but 2x2gb stick.
Then check the DX diag results. It should be something like 3800mb of display memory
..."

While his subtraction is accurate, this explanation fails to account for the correct readings you and others get from DxDiag.   

It also fails to address the out-of-memory issues I have in Aces High.

  *sigh*

[Skuzzy]

I am not buying his explanation either, especially when the video card is acting like it only has 734MB of video RAM.

[Bino]

I decided to update from my old i7-930 "Bloomfield" CPU to one of the new "Haswell" CPUs, an i7-4770K.  So while I've kept many components from my old build, I replaced the motherboard, CPU, and cooling.  The new mobo is an ASUS Z-87 PRO.  The cooling is a Corsair H80i all-in-one liquid unit.  I did keep my old video card, an XFX 7950.  And finally, both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of DXDiag report the full 3 GB of VRAM on the card.

It looks as though there never was anything wrong with the video card, after all.   Must have been some limit in the old Intel X58 BIOS. 

Skuzzy, thanks again for all your ideas while I was trying to track down this issue.   

Can't wait to run home today after work and install AH!