512mb cards a thing of the past?

Sweetloaf · 7 Feb 2009 at 22:38

Do you think it is likely that midrange cards will come equipped with 512mb RAM in the future, I'm asking because I don't really want to lose and system RAM (XP 32bit) I have 4Gb currently showing as 3Gb as it is with a 512mb card.

Something along the lines of a 260GT 512mb or similar revisions to future cards.

jrodga2k5 · 7 Feb 2009 at 22:45

Sweetloaf said:
Do you think it is likely that midrange cards will come equipped with 512mb RAM in the future, I'm asking because I don't really want to lose and system RAM (XP 32bit) I have 4Gb currently showing as 3Gb as it is with a 512mb card.

Something along the lines of a 260GT 512mb or similar revisions to future cards.

well mate I have a GTX 280 and I am showing up as having 3.225GB of my 4GB of ram on vista and thats with having 1GB onboard the card

Sweetloaf · 7 Feb 2009 at 22:49

jrodga2k5 said:
well mate I have a GTX 280 and I am showing up as having 3.225GB of my 4GB of ram on vista and thats with having 1GB onboard the card

I can't even begin to tell you how little I understand this crap, especially after that

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17972639

JeremyW · 7 Feb 2009 at 23:41

Sweetloaf said:
Do you think it is likely that midrange cards will come equipped with 512mb RAM in the future, I'm asking because I don't really want to lose and system RAM (XP 32bit) I have 4Gb currently showing as 3Gb as it is with a 512mb card.

Something along the lines of a 260GT 512mb or similar revisions to future cards.

Your graphics card memory is not impacting the amount of memory XP can use. You have 32 bit XP, the most memory this can use is approx 3.25GB regardless of the graphics card you use. If you switched to a 64 bit OS (XP or Vista) it would use all 4GB you have.

Caracus2k · 8 Feb 2009 at 03:13

Why stick with an old OS if you want to keep up with the times? XP is showing its age now and if you have a PC with 4GB ram and a half decent CPU Vista runs just fine. Maybe time to face it that 32bit much like 16 and 8 bit has had its day........ and to any Vista haters I remember people slagging XP of for the first couple of years saying it was a resource hog! In the future only budget cards will carry 512mb

Blackberries · 8 Feb 2009 at 03:31

JeremyW said:
Your graphics card memory is not impacting the amount of memory XP can use. You have 32 bit XP, the most memory this can use is approx 3.25GB regardless of the graphics card you use. If you switched to a 64 bit OS (XP or Vista) it would use all 4GB you have.

Er.. no. I am not even slightly a computing expert but the basic explanation is this: 32-bit operating systems operate, as the name suggests, using 32-bit intergers. The largest 32-bit integer is 4,294,967,295 (2^32). When it comes to addressable memory, this is the maximum number of identifiers for memory addresses that the OS can work with. This includes all addressable memory, be it system RAM, Video RAM, caches, etc. So the amount of VRAM his graphics card have will directly affect the ammount of System RAM availible.

thepeganator · 8 Feb 2009 at 03:43

Blackberries said:
Er.. no. I am not even slightly a computing expert but the basic explanation is this: 32-bit operating systems operate, as the name suggests, using 32-bit intergers. The largest 32-bit integer is 4,294,967,295 (2^32). When it comes to addressable memory, this is the maximum number of identifiers for memory addresses that the OS can work with. This includes all addressable memory, be it system RAM, Video RAM, caches, etc. So the amount of VRAM his graphics card have will directly affect the ammount of System RAM availible.

No no no no no.

There is an address space for each component, but it's not equal to the amount of ram onboard that component.

People need to stop saying this.

I have had personal experience with it, only saw 2.2gb ram on 32 bit Vista with 4gb and an 8800gt 512mb.
But friends laptop saw 3.75gb on xp 32.

There is an address space for the video card, but it is not equal not the amount of vram on the card.

Blackberries · 8 Feb 2009 at 03:46

No no no no no.

There is an address space for each component, but it's not equal to the amount of ram onboard that component.

People need to stop saying this.

I have had personal experience with it, only saw 2.2gb ram on 32 bit Vista with 4gb and an 8800gt 512mb.
But friends laptop saw 3.75gb on xp 32.

There is an address space for the video card, but it is not equal not the amount of vram on the card.

That still means that the amount of addressable system RAM will be affected by the amount of video RAM, even if the address space for the components aren't identical to the amount of RAM on the component.

thepeganator · 8 Feb 2009 at 03:55

Blackberries said:
That still means that the amount of addressable system RAM will be affected by the amount of video RAM, even if the address space for the components aren't identical to the amount of RAM on the component.

No it doesn't.

There is an address space for every component, but it is not dependant on the amount of vram on the gpu.

It is dependant on the components in the system, and various other complicated factors, but not the vram.

A 1gb card is as likely to show 3.5gb ram as a 256mb card.

Blackberries · 8 Feb 2009 at 04:18

thepeganator said:
No it doesn't.

There is an address space for every component, but it is not dependant on the amount of vram on the gpu.

It is dependant on the components in the system, and various other complicated factors, but not the vram.

A 1gb card is as likely to show 3.5gb ram as a 256mb card.

Then I have learned something today!

crooked i · 8 Feb 2009 at 05:00

i think 1gb is the way to go now

Audigex · 8 Feb 2009 at 05:37

Regardles of semantics, as soon as you hit 4gb RAM (the norm for many new builds) and any GPU, you start to lose RAM.

With 256mb and 4gb it's not so noticeable, but as soon as you step away from all but the cheapest cards you start to lose RAM at a noticeable rate.

To use a large PC superstore as an example (think purple T-shirts), a quick click on desktop PCs and then looking at the options gives around 30 PCs with 3gb or less, and 18 with 4 or over. Considering that these sort of shops deliver to the mainstream home markets, that's pretty indicative of general market share in the next 12 months.

Many PC makers are sticking with 3gb for now to keep in the 32bit envelope, but that can't last much longer. Windows 7 will be the last 32bit windows OS and we won't see many 512 mb cards in the near future.

Sweetloaf · 8 Feb 2009 at 08:02

thepeganator said:
No no no no no.

There is an address space for each component, but it's not equal to the amount of ram onboard that component.

People need to stop saying this.

I have had personal experience with it, only saw 2.2gb ram on 32 bit Vista with 4gb and an 8800gt 512mb.
But friends laptop saw 3.75gb on xp 32.

There is an address space for the video card, but it is not equal not the amount of vram on the card.

That's good to know but contradicts what I've previously been told, however it's good news so I'll listen to you

Is there a way of finding out how much memory is taken by the graphics card? If I upgrade from a 512mb 9600GT to a GTX280 1Gb Windows may still see 3GB it seems.

Any idea why Windows shows as little as 3Gb on my system when others see 3.25 or even 3.5Gb? I have a decent EMU1616 soundcard, could it be that?

Oh and I wish people would stop saying that I should move over to Vista.

a) It's £70 I don't need to spend.

b) My music apps won't all work on it.

jrodga2k5 · 8 Feb 2009 at 10:31

Sweetloaf said:
That's good to know but contradicts what I've previously been told, however it's good news so I'll listen to you

Is there a way of finding out how much memory is taken by the graphics card? If I upgrade from a 512mb 9600GT to a GTX280 1Gb Windows may still see 3GB it seems.

Any idea why Windows shows as little as 3Gb on my system when others see 3.25 or even 3.5Gb? I have a decent EMU1616 soundcard, could it be that?

Oh and I wish people would stop saying that I should move over to Vista.

a) It's £70 I don't need to spend.

b) My music apps won't all work on it.

There really is no real need to move mate if your happy on XP its that simple!

I had exactly the same amount of ram show with my 9800GTX as my GTX 280 so to be honest just go for the upgrade

jamiehavok · 8 Feb 2009 at 11:33

i can confirm what is being said in this thread - i got 3.5 gigs with 4 gigs and a gtx280

MR.B · 8 Feb 2009 at 13:24

What a mess...

FACTS:
If you have 4GB RAM on a 32-Bit OS then graphics RAM will eat away at it.
256MB/512MB/1GB Graphics RAM will take away the corresponding 256/512/1GB system RAM.

You may still see 3.5GB system RAM being detected, but this it not the amount of RAM that is usable.

Sweetloaf · 8 Feb 2009 at 13:26

And I'm back where I started

I'm still unsure why XP Home sees only 3Gb and not 3.5Gb.

DeathTyrant · 8 Feb 2009 at 13:37

Cards like the 4850, which are almost cheap enough (at least in my eyes) to be budget cards, along with 9600GTs and 8800GTs, are good examples of 512MB being the new gaming standard.

MR.B · 8 Feb 2009 at 13:37

Just get rid of that cave man OS

and get Vista 64-Bit or Windows 7 64-Bit, which is free!
I've used Win7 BETA for ages now and it's very stable, get it here.

Also 512MB cards are already the budget standard, you can get many many cards under £70 with 512MB or even 1GB RAM.
I'd personally like to start seeing 2GB cards, that actually have 2GB usable RAM (unlike the dual GPU/SLI/Crossfire setups).

thepeganator · 8 Feb 2009 at 13:44

MR.B said:
What a mess...

FACTS:
If you have 4GB RAM on a 32-Bit OS then graphics RAM will eat away at it.
256MB/512MB/1GB Graphics RAM will take away the corresponding 256/512/1GB system RAM.

You may still see 3.5GB system RAM being detected, but this it not the amount of RAM that is usable.

Not in the slightest.

You think people with quad-fire on a 32 bit os have no ram usable at all?

Pre vista sp1, seen ram = usable ram.
Post Vista SP1, you can see all 4gb even if not using it.