Stupid ram question

**jbearamus** · #1 (**permalink**) 09-17-2008, 07:36 PM

ah ha! just like how windows lies to you and says you have 950 MB of ram when you really have 1024

**weedahoe** · #2 (**permalink**) 09-18-2008, 08:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jbearamus

ah ha! just like how windows lies to you and says you have 950 MB of ram when you really have 1024

Exactly, it is reserved for system operations. This has always been a thing with anything MS touches.

**Adrianh85** · #3 (**permalink**) 09-22-2008, 05:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jbearamus

ah ha! just like how windows lies to you and says you have 950 MB of ram when you really have 1024

windows isnt lying its just that u have a on board video controller. and the mother board gets its memory that it needs before windows can regitor it.
if you used a after-market graphic card u wouldnt have that problem( but it still might be like .01 mb of ur memory not regitored)

microfirmz1 · #4 (**permalink**) 09-22-2008, 10:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by adrianh85

windows isnt lying its just that u have a on board video controller. and the mother board gets its memory that it needs before windows can regitor it.
if you used a after-market graphic card u wouldnt have that problem( but it still might be like .01 mb of ur memory not regitored)

Yes and No... If you notice, in 64bit systems this is not an issue. The reason for this is that a 32bit system can only address 4GB of memory. Devices lice Graphics cards need graphics memory (so here you are correct, onboard video will use the RAM for its graphics memory). However, if you have 4GB installed on a 32bit system, it will not show the full 4GB even if you are using an external (after-market) card as the ram on the graphics card needs to be addressed and will cut in to the system ram's address space.

So say you have a system with 4GB RAM and 3 quad-monitor video cards each 512MB RAM. If you are running on a 32bit system, you will only see 2.5GB in the system.

Cheers