Graphics question

[D-Dan]

I should really know this after 20 years of PC stuff, but I don't, so here goes.

I have a MB with integrated graphics (unused) - and an ATI X1950 plugged into the PCE-E slot. The card is 512Mb.

I've just upgraded my RAM to 4Gig - which understandably on 32 bit XP only registers as 3.5 Gig.

If I set the BIOS to use 512Mb (or 256Mb or whatever) of system RAM as graphics RAM, will it add it to the X1950 pool of RAM or will I just be wasting it on an unused graphics adapter?

The reason I ask is I'm working on some heavy duty 3D stuff, and for the editor at least, more RAM for the gfx card would help (not so important for rendering which uses system memory anyway)

Steve

[Simon]

Good question, to which I haven't an answer, but I'm sure someone will have.  My guess, however, is that the BIOS would direct the system RAM to the onboard graphics, rather than the graphics card, but as usual, I could well be wrong.

[vitriol]

You can't allocate system RAM to the graphics card, as Simon has stated it would only add to the onboard graphics adapter but since you're using the card there is no point doing that.

[Glenn]

Steve, what motherboard is it, if you have the manual, what does that say?

[D-Dan]

MB is an ABit KN9Ultra - doesn't say a damn thing

Edit: Though it may not matter. With the additional system RAM - it seems to be holding up (So now watch it crash whilst it's caching the the cloth and the hair dynamics).

The problem seems to appear when animating - but since I've tweaked the scene (as in - re-built) I have to set it all up first before I can get to that stage again.

Why do I have such a frustrating hobby 

[Sebby]

As someone else has mentioned, allocating system RAM to graphics will actually just be allocating it to the onboard graphics.

[merlin]

as others have said you will be allocating ram to the onboard (unused graphics)

one you might try is, windows has a bad habit of hanging on to ram it has used,and no longer required, there are programs that will clear ram that is no longer required, thereby in  effect speeding up ram, as it dosn't have to clear the used ram ,before it can reuse that part of the ram.

i used to have such a program when i was rendering video in adobe premier, but i just can't think of the name of it, it MAY have been ,something like memturbo, but that maybe wrong

or perhaps someone knows of a more modern program to do the job

[merlin]

D-DAN i,ve had another thought, one other thing that may help if your work is really ram intensive,
when windows has used all available ram ,it starts to use the "paging file" , which incase you do'nt know, is a portion of your hard drive set aside by windows, which it can use as ram, but being on the same hard drive as your work means that its relatively slow as the hard drive is having to do more work.

so if you have a second DRIVE, (not partition), put the paging file onto the second drive, thereby lessening the first hard drives work load,  this wo'nt actually speed things up ,but stops it slowing, due to overload, so in effect it faster than it would have been. hope that makes sense.

one thing to remember, as you have 4gb (yes windows won't use all of it) your ram usage would have to be fairly intensive to reguire use of the paging file.

but worth a try, and no harm can come of it. 

[Sebby]

Yep, it's always recommended to have the pagefile on a separate physical to drive to the one Windows is installed on.

[vitriol]

ooh what you rendering? are you a 3ds max / maya guru?

Always been interested in those programs but the interface scared me away from them.

[D-Dan]

OK - wow - a lot to answer.

My page file is on my scratch partition, which is on my 2nd drive (My system as pretty much as optimised as you can get - I've been playing with PCs for 25 years and learned a few tricks on the way). Although - I'm toying with the idea of zeroing the pagefile now (it's currently set at 512Mb), meaning that there will be no paged memory for the system to use, forcing it to use real RAM. which should give a significant speed boost. Since I've added an extra 1.5 Gig effective memory, sacraficing 512 Mb shouldn't present any problems. I'll let you know how I get on with that.

Granted, I'll lose system dumps in the event of a crash, but apart from that I can't see a down side.

Having said that, that won't help with my query. System memory is fine, it's graphics memory that I need, and I was wondering if system RAM could be forced to expand the RAM of the gfx card, but the general feeling (and indeed my own initial thoughts) are that it wouldn't. I'd simply be allocating RAM to an unused resource.

As for what package, I used to use 3DS Max until I fell out with the license holder. Now I'm back to Cinema 4D, which I originally used on Amiga. It's come a long way though. Here's a quick example of what I achieved in one hour http://roken.www.idnet.com/Desktoy.mov (hint - if it moves, it's fake - including shadows and reflections).

[vitriol]

cool, how long did that take to render?

[Sebby]

I run no pagefile, but then I don't do anything particularly RAM-intensive.

[merlin]

sebby what's the advantage of running without a paging file

[Sebby]

Theoretically better performance, though it's not right for everyone.

[D-Dan]

cool, how long did that take to render?

Less than an hour - with no post production work needed. I dare say I could have rendered to layers and used After Effects to improve the compositing, but for what I was doing at the time, the in editor compositing seemed to work well (and it was my first composite in 20 years)

[D-Dan]

Oh - as an aside - and back to the original post. I realised yesterday that the MB in PC1 (4 Gig machine) doesn't have the on board graphics - that's on PC2. The question was still valid - although somewhat redundant. I transplanted one of the displaced sticks from PC1 into PC2 - but there seems to be no stable combination of RAM if I do that. PC2 just doesn't like my now spare sticks, so it's back to just 1Gig on that machine.

Steve