ATI Radeon X300SE and system memory

[Hawco]

I (well, not me, one of my IT guys did) installed the above, I noticed that with a new card, the software was still using system memory along with a portion of video memory.
The video memory would be used as the game got busier etc. I thought the software would use the video memory only ? Good card though, MY FRs have shot up to a min of 55 and bursts up to over 100, I didn't find much difference between 1024 and 512 so I kept it at 512, I also turned on animated water, but this led to Frs of around 35-47 so I turned it off.
Hawco

[StarOfAfrica2]

You are always going to be using system memory unless you can find a video card with something like 1GB of memory on it.  Even then I wouldnt doubt you'd get some system memory hits.  

You wont notice ANY difference between 1024 and 512 on your max texture size if you dont manually download the high rez texture pack from the website.  Even after doing it I couldnt see any noticeable difference visually, but I started getting freeze frames and stutters from the game using up all my memory.  I put it back down to 512 and left it there.  I cant notice any difference on a standard size monitor.  I think from a discussion we had on this a week or so ago, you arent going to notice it unless you have a reeeeeally big screen.  I prefer to use my system resources to bump up my AntiAliasing on my video card and get rid of all the jagged edges on my wings and horizons and such.  The lower settings bug me.  

I dont know why you'd get a fps hit from animated water unless the new drivers have gone downhill.  I still dont use it though, even though it doesnt affect my fps.  Its hard to see other planes and its just annoying, but thats my personal opinion.  Other people may like it.