you need to read my posts better mate
Andrei- the point of having a dedicated graphics card with 512/768/1024MB of memory on it is to relieve the system RAM from having to cover the same memory for it’s floating point calculations. The memory is on the card and the information doesn’t have to be sent to the main processor/ RAM and therefore is much quicker.
If running an integrated graphics card on the motherboard (practically unheard of now but I think intel are trying to scale it back in) then this uses the system RAM for it’s calculations and would remove from the total available to the system.
I think the less RAM showing is due to the 32-bit architecture and the physical amount of memory it’s capable of addressing.
This is all a bit of a moo(t) point (yup- a cow’s point of view) as Trojan’s PC is pretty schweet and he’s happy as larry playing COD4 anyway.
I just wonder how much they stung you for that little lot think of all the bike bits you could have bought and been out playing on…
The Vista issue is just Vista 32bit problem mate, it does take in consideration everything, it’s the way it works, it will add up all your memory, RAM and Video Ram and whatever else, if together they go over 4GB that’s it… you will lose the RAM, it will never be used so complete waste of money:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946765
INFO ON VISTA 32BIT and 64BIT MEMORY ADDRESSING:
The PCI memory addresses starting down from 4 GB are used for things like the BIOS, IO cards, networking, PCI hubs, bus bridges, PCI-Express, and video/graphics cards. The BIOS takes up about 512 KB starting from the very top address. Then each of the other items mentioned are allocated address ranges below the BIOS range. The largest block of addresses is allocated for today’s high performance graphics cards which need addresses for at least the amount of memory on the graphics card. The net result is that a high performance x86-based computer may allocate 512 MB to more than 1 GB for the PCI memory address range before any RAM (physical user memory) addresses are allocated.
So, if your video adapter has 512MB of RAM, your maximum memory is going to at most be 3.5GB, because Vista has to use 512MB of that address space to address your video memory. It’ll actually be lower than the 3.5GB because there are other hardware resources that need address space, too. So, it never hurts to fill your computer with 4GB of RAM–you’ll definitely get the max, but you won’t be able to address it all. You probably won’t be able to address much more than 3GB, and you might not be able to address more than 2GB. Basically, depending on the hardware, you might be limited to 4GB of RAM even if you install 64-bit Windows Vista.
Windows XP Professional x64 Edition uses 64-bit addressing enabling virtually the entire amount of installed RAM to be made available on computers that have large address infrastructures (where the entire system has more than 4 GB addressing capabilities via the processor, chipset, physical memory capacity, etc). The HP xw4300, xw6200, xw8200 and xw9300 Workstations have the required infrastructures and even the PCI memory address range is recovered by re-mapping it above the top of physical memory.
Kenny if your Vista 64-Bit sees 3.2GB then it must be a BIOS setting or one of your RAM Sticks is forked up, I assume you have 4 x 1GB, if you have 2 x 2GB then it could be a Vista problem, most likely you never installed Servicepack 1. Or maybe you have Vista 32Bit and don’t know it :):)
For some fixes have a look here:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;929777
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940105
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938979
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938194
I had no problems installing and running Vista, only took about 1 hour with drivers and all. I had more problems trying to clone the hard drive, was trying to use Norton Ghosy 14 and it messed up my Windows… I went to Acronis and got the Migrate Easy 7 trial which works fully for 15 days. Only took about 45 minutes to clone my old hard drive. I highly recommend it, never use Norton software, they suck. The 15 days trial works nicely because you would only need to use this software once unless you change your main HDD often.
My advice to Trojan would be to either get 2GB of faster ram or go for 2GB DDR3 or just get VIsta-64Bit as the price is the same or maybe £10 more. Vista 64Bit runs 32bits also so you have no problems whatsoever.
I assume by now he got the PC so what does the PC say about your RAM mate? How much can you see in the Windows Information Panel not in BIOS?
Wil ER6F I worked out everything mate to the pence, if I was going to buy a pre-made lower spec system from a shop if would have ended the same price or just a little under what I paid for mine. The total price for the PC came to about £1300.
Hope the above info will help for future decisions based on RAM and what version of Vista to get:)
Maybe someone else can correct me if I am wrong… Jay you a bit of an IT Boff… am I right??
Very short one from me:
Bin the order all together.
Get a Mac
:hehe::w00t:;):P:D:)
lol yeah but not for games mate… Macs are workhorses for the entertainement industry:) Special Effects, Video Editing, Graphics, Music… etc
Fair points Andrei… typical microsoft messing it up- the bigger the graphics card RAM- the less standard RAM available… schtoopid.
I haven’t built a whole system for a while tbh, so not sure of the costs, a top spec system for 1k aint too bad though.
And to that post about Macs… gah… just gah… how many times have you been able to replace the parts in it if they go wrong… hate macs… I even don’t have an Ipod on principle against Apple. Die hard PC fan all the way here!
mate your eagerness to help is laudable
but as i mentioned before you are not reading the posts in full
I never mentioned having 64bit vista
like most Vista users I have 32bit and have access to 3.7Gb of my 4gb installed RAM
the rest is reserved as i have a weedy 8800 GTS graphics card
these forums are focused on bikes and this sub-section is for general techie discussion not in depth analysis of PC setup
IMO it doesnt help the avg PC user to know about memory addressing issues
the best advice for them is to fill your PC with the fastest and highest capacities you can afford (and the motherboard can take)
oh and +1 against the fixed crappy mac architecture :D:P
Oh ******** mate… so sorry, kenny was that one that said he had Vista 64Bit Premium and saw only 3.2GB… sorry again mate, when I am wrong I am wrong and I can admit it, must have been a funny scroll cause I saw your name and the text… not sure how I managed that. I’ve changed my post to reflect that.
Anyhow it’s still good info, I wasted a whole day on the net trying to get answers as I was trying to order my parts so I saw all kind of forums and issues people had with Vista 32bit and 4GB+ RAM. I was 100% sure to get Windows XP64bit until I read up and saw the difference. Also only found out that the RAM I wanted wasn’t compatible with the Motherboard I wanted by going to the manufacturer website and checking more in depth specs. Same goes for video card, I had no idea it wanted 8Pin and 6Pin, out of about 5 websites only 1 had a warning about this (not even NVidia had a warning about it). Same with power supply, I had to go to manufacturer website and double check it would work with what I had. I also had to make sure the Case was up to scratch with what I wanted to pu inside.
For every bit of component I was adding to my shopping cart I would go to manufacturer website and read up on it, if not what I wanted I would remove and get something else. My original PC was £800 and ended up spending more just because my components wouldn’t work together. The £800 PC I wanted to build was selling for almost £1700 built on most other websites.
So to recap for the average user:
If you get the biggest baddest PC with 4GB of RAM or more make sure you get Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-Bit. Some websites allow you to order and build your PC online and chose the Operating System.
If you do know some stuff about PCs and wanna build a new pc but not up to date with hardware double check everything works together. Motherboard and RAM, Power Supply and Video Card are the main 2 things to check for compatibility because you want the motherboard to run your RAM at max speed and the power supply to have enough juice for the power hungry video card. The rest of components should be fine. I would stress to read up on the manufacturer website about the product.
If anyone needs a hand putting a new PC together gimme a shout, at least I can check all your bits work together and advise on the purchase.
thanks for the info Andrei, as far as the computer is concerned , it thinks its 64 bit the ram has been changed to no avail., I am all up to date on patches and updates, I confirmed that with those links you posted, I can’t find a bios problem, although I suspect that may be where the problem lies.Any way its flying along nicely so I’ll let it ride
I tested the PC on games yesterday, in WOW the game runs with everything at max settings but it did crash on me once, then again WOW is not very demanding.
Lord of the Rings Online which uses DX10 and on max settings I saw some slower frames, I took some of the shadows off and seems much better, everything looks amazing.
On Hellgate London everything looks brilliant, I did run the 32Bit version because I wanted to test out a cheat trainer and it wouldn’t work with 64Bit, the good thing is that you can play the 32bit or 64bit at any time without any problems. Much better tan on my old PC. I had some issues with the video blanking out then coming back… and it crashed once.
I assume the crashes were because of the 64Bit platform…
I am trying to get hold of Assassin Creed and see how that will run. Maybe I should get COD4 and join you lot online:) get my ass kicked.
Kenny mate let me know your specs, what motherboard you have, what RAM and what video card. Best way to see your system spec is to just right click on My Computer and go to Properties, or even better go to your search bar from the Start menu and do a search for dxdiag, run the Direct X info program and it will give you an idea on what system you have, how much memory is address etc etc… remember Vista only downloads the most significant patches, sometimes it can leave out other downloads that you may need.
have you tried to overclock the CPU yet?
Haven’t messed about with the overclocking yet:)
Kenny mate I can’t seem to access my PMs so can you post the specs here pls.
windows vista home premium (6.0, build 6000)
mobo MSI MS-7236
default system bios
intel core2duo E6750 @2.66GHz
3198MB RAM (4 x 1GB sticks DDR2 pc5300)
direct x 10
NVIDEA GeForce 8800GTS
intergrated RAMDAC
approx total memory 1628MB (thought it was 320MB card ?)
TBH I never had to do more that replace an internal hard drive on a 6 years old iMac once. Short of that, in the last 10 years I have been exclusively using macs both home and at work, never once have a Mac got down on me (fells like a married man thinking about it :hehe:).
Macs are hated by the IT industry because their job would go out of the windows if they were to get their way into most corporation…
I am sure this is a conspiracy concocted by not other than the king of the Borgs.
Everything seems OK mate but your Windows could still be 32Bit hence the missing RAM. Your 320MB Video Card is that big bacuse of the memory allocation, my video cars has 2000+GB allocated. Anyhow check this screenshot out and see if you can get the same on your system. You just right click your Computer and go to Properties:
http://www.geocities.com/andrei_michnea/version.jpg