RAM vs Video RAM

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Ok its like this... I have XP... a 1.7 Ghz P4
no video card... (dont play games much so didnt want it) And 128 MB RAM.
I just got an extra of 128 + 64 MB rAM now... I wanted to know if it was better to assign that 128 to Video RAM or to normal RAM. Coz my mother board bios has something... an option in which i can change how much RAM is VRAM.

Can someone tell me which will better game play?

Note... i think i can use only 128 + 128... the 64 is waste coz my mother board has only 2 slots. :(
 
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Onboard graphics sucks anyway, so it not gonig to make a good difference with ethier option. Also, getting a new gfx card is out of question because your processor will bottleneck the gfx card (however, it is better then using onboard gfx, just not as good as buying a newer machine considering the age of your current machine).
 
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I agree with overlord... It'd be stupid to assign that to your OBV... Windows XP isnt supposed to run well with 128mb of ram... if i were you, id assign that to be normal ram, rather than OBV ram. So atleast you can make Xp a "little" more stable.
 
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It usually isn't the CPU that bottlenecks the GFXcard.. It's most likely the speed of the AGP/PCI slot you use.. But that doesn't really matter..

On-board video isn't rendered by RAM btw, it's rendered by the CPU, so assigning RAM to your OBV wouldn't matter (much)
 
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Kimfu said:
It usually isn't the CPU that bottlenecks the GFXcard.. It's most likely the speed of the AGP/PCI slot you use.. But that doesn't really matter..
Bah, Kimfu. I'm sorry, but that's wrong. AGP rate generally won't hinder performance unless it's like set to the 1x or 2x speed. CPU and RAM speed/amount plays a much bigger part.
Kimfu said:
On-board video isn't rendered by RAM btw, it's rendered by the CPU, so assigning RAM to your OBV wouldn't matter (much)
On-board video is the renderer itself. It's basically a cheap VPU built into the motherboard itself. It does the rendering, not the CPU. Sorry, love.

Anyways, I agree with the other two posters.
 
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Well, I went to the local PC store to check for a new GFXcard, but i said to the guy there that I have a rather outdated CPU etc and that i'm afraid that it would bottleneck.. He told me that the bottleneck is the speed of the AGP slots (4x in my case), not the CPU..

And hmm, I always thought CPU rendered the OBV.. oh well ^^
 
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Kimfu said:
Well, I went to the local PC store to check for a new GFXcard, but i said to the guy there that I have a rather outdated CPU etc and that i'm afraid that it would bottleneck.. He told me that the bottleneck is the speed of the AGP slots (4x in my case), not the CPU..
Then that guy is an idiot, heh.
 
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Ok I'll make it normal RAM thanks guys.

But anyway, I am gonna switch back to 2000 I think. Then try assigning just 16 MB atleast to VRAM.
 
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vinay87 said:
Ok I'll make it normal RAM thanks guys.

But anyway, I am gonna switch back to 2000 I think. Then try assigning just 16 MB atleast to VRAM.
No dude, it'd be stupid to do that. Just stay the way you are, trust me, it'd be pointless and not worth the effort to change over to WIN2000
 
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But i want ESF to play fast and not in that stoopid software mode.... In 2000 i could play OpenGL Even with only 128MB RAM.

Just let me know if i can play ESF in OpenGL and without any lag or someo other problems with only 256 .megs..

EDIT: I play only ESF... Nothing Else. And Quake 3 Arena, but thats no big deal as It runs smoothly enough.
 
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Instead of buying new RAM, buy an old Geforce2 MX for the same budget.. It'll work 100x better than assigning RAM to software rendered..

(I find it quite weird that you can run Quake 3, though, since that's OpenGL only afaik)
 
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Well, i got my RAM salvaged from my other PC....

Not actually buying anything... If i was, i would go for 512 MB...
 
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Geforce MX FTW!!!! I've got one of those, they work smoothly with ESF OpenGL, I get 60 fps, but if I disable most of the stuff, graphics wise and edit some console commands(like in those other stickied threads) then I sometimes hit 100 fps, it's very nice, oh, but I have 1 gig RAM, lol.
 
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yeah but its 7$ for shipping... not free.

Anyways i am in India man, i cant get stuff like that coz thatoffers for us and canada only.
 
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In general Windows 2000 has a smaller Memory footprint to begin with. Disable everything in MSCONFIG--->STARTUP.
If your going to game on windows 2000 with only 128Mb of ram here is some pointers. Right Click "My Computer" ----> Performance ----> Disable all the "pretty stuff" and just check the bottom 3 things. (Maxes XP feel more responsive, and uses less ram). Have your Video Card set to 32Mb or 16Mb.

And to disable some services:

Click the start button.
Select run from the bottom of the right column.
Then type services.msc in the box and click ok.
Once the services window has loaded we are ready to turn off unneeded services.
For instructional purposes we are going to turn off the Portable Media Serial Number service.
Find this service in the list and select it with the mouse.
Right click and select Properties.
Once the properties windows has loaded locate the Start up type drop down box and select disable.
Then just click ok and the next time the computer starts the service will not be loaded.

Do this with Care !


and some other tweaks to minimise XP's memory Usage:

Removing thumbnail Caches:
To make folders with thumbnail images start up faster
Go to control panel and then folder options
Click on the view tab and Uncheck "Do not cache thumbnails"

Some registry performance tweaks:
(To Open regedit goto Start/run and type "regedit")

DiskCache Tweak:
Open Regedit
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/ControlSession/ Manager/MemoryManagement/IoPageLockLimit];
Modify the value in Hex depending on the size of your RAM
RAM: modified value(Hex)
64M: 1000;
128M: 4000;
256M: 10000;
512M or more: 40000.
Reboot.


And make sure your HDD is set to DMA. (Google it)


XP Prefetcher:
With Windows XP comes a service called the Prefetcher. This service monitors which programs initialize when Windows boots, then in future, fetches them quickly. The Prefetcher is enabled by default, but you can improve its performance. Simply navigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlSession ManagerMemory ManagementPrefetchParameters

the registry and find the value EnablePrefetcher. Most likely, it will be set to 3. The recommended setting for the prefetcher is 5, and that's what works best for me. Feel free to play around with it a bit, though, and find out what works best for you. Dont set it to 0.


L2 Cache Tweakage:
The L2, or second-level, cache, is an integral part of your CPU. However, XP is very shoddy at detecting it, so setting it manually is sometimes necessary. It's easy to do, though, you simply have to navigate to RUN>Regedit>

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlSession ManagerMemory Management

in the registry and find the value SecondLevelDataCache. You must then adjust it to the value (in kilobytes) of the L2 Cache of your processor.
Make sure you select "decimal" when changing the value. to find out how much L2 cache you have, just donwload CPU-Z (Google it).

And if your going to be playing around with large and small files here is the best File systems to use:

Fat 32: High performance with lots of small files, Slow performance with large files. (Max file size possible is 4gb).

NTFS: High performance with large files, Slow performance with small files.
(Max File size is the max volume of the storage media).


If you require any help or assistance or require any advice, feel free to PM me.
 

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