512 Mb video card is reported to have 1024 Mb???

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DK

I installed GeForce 210 into Asus M4N68T-M-V2.

The label on a card very clearly indicates 512 Mb. However,
XP reports only 3 Gb memory out of 4 and both CPU-Z and
SIW ("System Information for Windows") report 1024 Mb
video memory.

I have no use for anything above 512 Mb of video memory but
once in a while having more than 3 GB memory is useful for
a few things that I do. So I am trying to understand what's going
on and how it can be solved. I can't find anything in BIOS that
would relate to the video memory is concerned.

Any ideas? Thanks,

Dima
 
I installed GeForce 210 into Asus M4N68T-M-V2.

The label on a card very clearly indicates 512 Mb. However,
XP reports only 3 Gb memory out of 4 and both CPU-Z and
SIW ("System Information for Windows") report 1024 Mb
video memory.
Click to expand...

By the way, DXDiag also reports 1024 Mb.
 
DK said:
I installed GeForce 210 into Asus M4N68T-M-V2.

The label on a card very clearly indicates 512 Mb. However,
XP reports only 3 Gb memory out of 4 and both CPU-Z and
SIW ("System Information for Windows") report 1024 Mb
video memory.

I have no use for anything above 512 Mb of video memory but
once in a while having more than 3 GB memory is useful for
a few things that I do. So I am trying to understand what's going
on and how it can be solved. I can't find anything in BIOS that
would relate to the video memory is concerned.

Any ideas? Thanks,

Dima
Click to expand...
You don't mention if you're running 32- or 64-bit WinXP, but if you have 32-bit, you're not going to show the whole 4GB
anyhow. Generally, only 2.5 to 3.25GB will be shown, unless you have 64-bit Windows.

Did you disable the on-board Nvidia 7025 in BIOS after installing the 210? That could be where the rest of 1024MB is
coming from. (I have that same MB.)
 
SC said:
You don't mention if you're running 32- or 64-bit WinXP, but if you have
32-bit, you're not going to show the whole 4GB anyhow. Generally, only
2.5 to 3.25GB will be shown, unless you have 64-bit Windows.

Did you disable the on-board Nvidia 7025 in BIOS after installing the
210? That could be where the rest of 1024MB is coming from. (I have that
same MB.)
Click to expand...

Onchip VGA Frame Buffer Size. Can be adjusted down to 32MB but
apparently doesn't have zero as an option in the Asus manual.
Perhaps the real BIOS installed in the motherboard, has better
options, not documented in the manual ? Somehow, I doubt this is
causing the "1GB" report from DirectX though.

*******

What's interesting, is a Gigabyte board with 7025 Northbridge offers these options.

"Onchip VGA Frame Buffer Size" [Auto, Disable, 32M, 64M, 128M, 256M]
"Onboard GPU" [Enable if no Ext PEG, Always Enable]

and that is a *perfect* set of options, because it gives you everything
you could possible expect from 7025 IGP (including the ability to
turn it off). The Asus motherboard manual doesn't offer that nice
set of options. So Gigabyte did a better job in their BIOS design.

*******

The behavior seen doesn't bother me that much. I have a 512MB card, I have
4GB memory, a 32 bit OS, and I get "3GB available" RAM reported. And that
is the BIOS decision as to what cut off point to remap memory above 4GB
(where my 32 bit OS can't see it). But DirectX on my system reports
512MB as expected.

You can also use Device Manager (Start : Run : devmgmt.msc) , use
View : Resources By Type and use that to examine what the various
piece of hardware are using.

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/1707/devmgmtrestype.gif

Another way to check video resources, is with GPU-Z.

http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/SysInfo/GPU-Z/

Paul
 
You don't mention if you're running 32- or 64-bit WinXP, but if you have
32-bit, you're not going to show the whole 4GB
anyhow. Generally, only 2.5 to 3.25GB will be shown, unless you have 64-bit
Windows.
Click to expand...

It's 32 bit and I don't expect it to show the whole 4 GB. I did expect
the system and various pieces of software to detect 512 MB of
video memory instead of 1024.
Did you disable the on-board Nvidia 7025 in BIOS after installing the 210?
Click to expand...

I don't see any option to do that. The only option is the priority of
video to use:

PCIE --> PCI --> IGP
or
IGP --> PCI -- PCIE
Onchip VGA Frame Buffer Size
Click to expand...

Once PCIE --> PCI --> IGP sequence is chosen, this option is
not available.
Another way to check video resources, is with GPU-Z.
Click to expand...

CPU-Z reports 1024 Mb video.

- Dima
 
Once PCIE --> PCI --> IGP sequence is chosen, this option is
not available.
Click to expand...

I take it back. There is no such option in the BIOS that I can find
anywhere - regardless of the setting for video.
 
DK said:
I take it back. There is no such option in the BIOS that I can find
anywhere - regardless of the setting for video.
Click to expand...

Which implies that the IGP is disabled, as soon as the PCI Express
video card is detected ?

As for the 1GB claim, use Device Manager and verify the memory
ranges listed in there. Post a URL to a screen capture of
the Device Manager, if you can arrange it. I do screen captures
of selected windows, with the GIMP graphics editor, but there
are other ways to do it.

http://www.gimp.org/downloads/

If you can see a real, 1GB segment mapped for the video card,
then perhaps it does have that much memory on board. (In my example
here, the video card is 512MB.)

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/1707/devmgmtrestype.gif

Paul
 
Paul said:
As for the 1GB claim, use Device Manager and verify the memory
ranges listed in there. Post a URL to a screen capture of the
Device Manager, if you can arrange it. I do screen captures of
selected windows, with the GIMP graphics editor, but there are
other ways to do it.
Click to expand...

Hold "alt" while pressing "print screen".

--
 
John said:
Hold "alt" while pressing "print screen".
Click to expand...

Once it's pulled into GIMP, I save as GIF and upload to imageshack.
Since I need an image editor anyway, easier to do it from the GIMP
"acquire" menu. (In the example in this thread, the image is
annotated.) The "acquire" image automatically opens at the
right resolution choices. Whereas if I use a copy/paste buffer, GIMP
doesn't behave very smart about it. I have to paste, then crop.

My upload is pitifully slow, and switching to (8 bit) GIF for
technical pictures of dialog boxes is good enough.

Paul
 
Paul said:
Once it's pulled into GIMP, I save as GIF and upload to
imageshack. Since I need an image editor anyway, easier to do it
from the GIMP "acquire" menu. (In the example in this thread,
the image is annotated.) The "acquire" image automatically opens
at the right resolution choices. Whereas if I use a copy/paste
buffer, GIMP doesn't behave very smart about it. I have to
paste, then crop.

My upload is pitifully slow, and switching to (8 bit) GIF for
technical pictures of dialog boxes is good enough.
Click to expand...

I would do "alt" while pressing "print screen". Then say "Drawing"
to open Windows XP picture editor. Then say "set" to paste the
clipboard image. Then verbally click and drag to crop the upper
and left sides. Then press escape to release the picture. Then
position the pointer to the correct crop location for the lower
and right sides, note the pixel location, and set the picture
attributes accordingly. Then save as JPG or whatever.

If I were doing lots of pictures, I might look for something
better, like maybe clicking and dragging a rectangle to crop the
picture. Also, I'm not sure how well the Windows XP picture editor
does for saving pictures in a compact form, relative to other
programs. I think it usually depends on the source. My most recent
picture posted here to UseNet was a tiny 3 kB.

--
 
DK said:
I take it back. There is no such option in the BIOS that I can find
anywhere - regardless of the setting for video.
Click to expand...

I don't think the Frame Buffer setting will show at all with the 210 installed, only when it is out and you're running
on the onboard chip.

GPU-Z is a different program than CPU-Z; it's for video cards/chipsets only.

I'm sorry I misled you about disabling the onboard video. I think I still had my old M2NPV-VM MB on my mind when I
posted that; it had the separate options of enabling/disabling.
 
DK said:
Here it is:
http://img828.imageshack.us/img828/9590/memorye.png

I am not sure how to translate the hex memory ranges into megabytes.
Click to expand...

To reference another user's allocations, I couldn't find a Device
Manager picture for Geforce 210, so I grabbed the first Linux
one I could find.

http://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/hardware/460571-nvidia-geforce-210-a.html

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GT218 [GeForce 210] (rev a2)
Subsystem: eVga.com. Corp. Device 1212
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 18
Memory at fb000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
Memory at ce000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=32M]
I/O ports at ef00
[virtual] Expansion ROM at c0000000 [disabled] [size=512K]
Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 3
Capabilities: [68] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
Capabilities: [78] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
Capabilities: [b4] Vendor Specific Information: Len=14 <?>
Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel
Capabilities: [128] Power Budgeting <?>
Capabilities: [600] Vendor Specific Information: ID=0001 Rev=1 Len=024 <?>
Kernel driver in use: nouveau

The three mappings, appear to match your mapping, in terms of size.
A 16MB, a 32MB, and a 256MB segment. So it's not even reporting as
a 512MB card (as the 256MB segment would be 512MB, if it was a 512MB
card). If could be, that the card is "TurboCache", and dynamically
allocates additional memory from system memory. But that would not
affect the "free" memory reported by the OS. It doesn't explain why
it reports as 1GB.

When I compare your map to my map, it looks like your computer
is avoiding the top-most 512MB, and I don't see a device listed
that corresponds to that range. That can happen, if a fixed
allocation is given to the built-in graphics. Some of your
hardware devices needing bus space, are at 0xDE, and 0xE0 to 0xFF
would be 512MB of space.

As near as I can determine, 512MB is just being wasted. And I
can't tell exactly why. Either a BIOS bug, or still related
to the IGP (integrated graphics).

Paul
 
Me either, but since I know I'll be corrected if wrong...

The second value has six more Fs. That translates into decimal
16777215. Then maybe you multiply that by 32 bits to get
536870880. Looks like 512 MB would be closer than 1 GB?
Click to expand...

It's already in bytes.

Besides, you're not looking at the main buffer. That's at C0000000
and it's 256mb.
 
I installed GeForce 210 into Asus M4N68T-M-V2.

The label on a card very clearly indicates 512 Mb. However,
XP reports only 3 Gb memory out of 4 and both CPU-Z and
SIW ("System Information for Windows") report 1024 Mb
video memory.

I have no use for anything above 512 Mb of video memory but
once in a while having more than 3 GB memory is useful for
a few things that I do. So I am trying to understand what's going
on and how it can be solved. I can't find anything in BIOS that
would relate to the video memory is concerned.

Any ideas? Thanks,

Dima
Click to expand...
Have you considered that the video card might actually _have_ 1024mb of
memory installed? Mistakes do happen and I'm sure that the person at the
factory isn't being paid the big bucks for sticking labels on them as they
pass on the assembly line. Of course the real answer is to pop the heatsink
and determine what memory chips are installed and to do the math.

BTW, with XP you are unlikely to seem much more than 3gB installed memory
if you have 4gB of SIMMs installed.
 
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