ram displaying as 3.8gb ?

trialsiain · 13 Jan 2013 at 22:51

I was on can i run it.. and it said i wouldnt can play reccomended of skyrim because i have 3.8gb of ram even though i have 4gb ? :S

RJC · 13 Jan 2013 at 22:53

What are your system specs?

Some memory could be reserved for onboard GPU.

Bromhead · 13 Jan 2013 at 22:54

Might this be if you have a 32bit OS? I think with that it only reads 3.8 if I remember correctly.

+1 to what RJC said also. If you don't have a discrete card, the on board will be using some of that ram you have

trialsiain · 13 Jan 2013 at 22:56

i have ivy brdge integrated but am getting gfx card next week and i have 64bit windows 7

Bacon? · 13 Jan 2013 at 23:12

3.8GB of RAM showing and you have 4GB? Seems correct since Windows uses up some of the RAM.

Audigex · 13 Jan 2013 at 23:55

It's either onboard graphics "stealing" some of your RAM, or you've got a 32bit OS installed.

The 32bit OS can only "see" 4GB of memory addressing, but this has to include CPU cache, the memory on your graphics card etcetc, leaving around 3.5-4GB.

Bromhead · 14 Jan 2013 at 00:09

I think since you've got 64bit os, once you slap in a dedicated graphics card you'll see that change to the full amount.

Orcvader · 14 Jan 2013 at 00:33

trialsiain said:
i have ivy brdge integrated but am getting gfx card next week and i have 64bit windows 7

That's where the missing RAM is, some of it is being reserved for vRAM for the IGP. Once you get a dedicated GPU and disable the onboard in BIOS, you'll have the full 4gb.

MagicBoy · 14 Jan 2013 at 00:39

Bromhead said:
Might this be if you have a 32bit OS? I think with that it only reads 3.8 if I remember correctly.

It's usually way less than that. I've seen anywhere between 2.9GB and 3.4GB depending on the machine config with 4GB or higher installed.

It'll be the integrated graphics stealing some RAM for framebuffer, just ignore it and play Skyrim, the 200Mb short is unlikely to stop it running.

trialsiain · 14 Jan 2013 at 09:40

MagicBoy said:
It's usually way less than that. I've seen anywhere between 2.9GB and 3.4GB depending on the machine config with 4GB or higher installed.

It'll be the integrated graphics stealing some RAM for framebuffer, just ignore it and play Skyrim, the 200Mb short is unlikely to stop it running.

i have samsung 1333 ram if i got kingston 4gb 1333 ram would that work ?

MagicBoy · 14 Jan 2013 at 09:51

Probably, but I'd still install a dedicated graphics card first.

trialsiain · 14 Jan 2013 at 09:53

MagicBoy said:
Probably, but I'd still install a dedicated graphics card first.

yea gtx 660 should come on tuesday

Audigex · 14 Jan 2013 at 11:14

trialsiain said:
i have samsung 1333 ram if i got kingston 4gb 1333 ram would that work ?

The brand/speed of RAM will make no difference. Adding more RAM will give you more RAM (obviously) but you'll always be missing that 200MB until you get a dedicated GPU.

Don't worry about it - 3.8GB is close enough to 4GB that you won't notice in 99.9% of usage.