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Video Memory query

BigB@dJ@y

BigB@dJ@y

BigB@dJ@y

Associate
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
1,547
Location
Lancashire
I have a question which one of you graphics experts may be able to help me with.

Here's the story:-

I bought a Dell Dimension 5150 app 14 months ago. I asked for the graphics card to be upgraded by dell to an ATI X600 256MB Hypermemory PCIe card (this was confirmed on my order).
I never bothered to check the spec of this card as it ran BF2 on medium settings quite well.
I have just sold this card on these very forums for the princley sum of £17.50 inc del.
The buyer has informed me that he is not happy as it is infact a 128MB card!
I asked him to take a screen shot of ATI tools (see picture below, sorry about the size)



Is there anyway he is mistaken or have Dell ripped me off!?!
( I have noticed he is running this card at a high resolution, this would surely affect performance)
Is this anything to do with the card using Hypermemory? i.e. Is this actually a 256MB card but only shows 128MB dedicated memory and the rest shared?

I have offered him a refund if he is not happy?


Any help appreciated :)

BBJ
 
Last edited:
Right...sorted it out myself after doing a bit of googling!!
The ATI X600 256MB SE Hypermemory only has 128MB dedicated video memory and the rest is shared with the system memory!! :rolleyes:

Damn those marketing muppets!! :mad:

Argh!! Do you think this was still worth the £17.50 inc. I sold it for??
 
Hypermemory means that half of the memory is onboard the card and half uses system memory, ATI do stipulate that you must have a certain amount of onboard memory I believe before it will fully utilise Hypermemory. However I thought that it was just merely double what the graphics card was supposed to have in total e.g. 512mb Ram in this case.

I've never used a Hypermemory card but are there possibly any options in "Advanced Settings" or similar that need checked to enable Hypermemory?
 
I found the information out from this thread :-
http://www.howtofixcomputers.com/bb/ftopic111115.html

It seems they advertise it as an X600 256MB SE Hypermemory but it only has 128MB dedicated video memory as you said mate!!

I have informed the buyer of this and will offer him a refund if he returns the card but I reckon its still worth the £17.50 I sold it for :(

If he returns it I'll keep it as a spare (can you believe I sold him this last week, the day after I posted it my Sapphire X1950pro died!!! Luckily I managed to get the shop to swap it the next day and now have an Asus eax1950pro which is massive but much quieter) Damned computers!! :)
 
Yeah, the NVidia equivalent is turbocache. They should have a list of words that cannot be used when the product is slower than the standard version (suggestions: hyper, turbo, ultra, and combinations of X, G, T, i, S, E)
 
Little update

I am refunding the buyer his £17.50!

After a rather snotty email he states a normal 128MB card would be fine but as he cant disable hypermemory it is eating up all his resources! He is running Vista with "aero" on using a screen resolution of 1680 x 1050 with 1 GB of ram and decides after 2 weeks that an X600 256MB SE Hypermemory card for £17.50 is not up to the job!!! :mad:

I really cant be bothered with helping people out by offering them my spare card for peanuts only to get into an argument about who pays the return postage cost of £1.75.

The way I see it is I paid the postage costs to him, he should pay for the return therefore nobody lloses any money and he gets the free use of a GFX card for 2 weeks!!

Do you think I am being fair? :confused:
 
I'd say you were being fair, it seems to have been an unfortunate misunderstanding which you have done your best to sort it out simply. £1.75 hardly seems worth kicking up a fuss though from either side but there is no real reason why you should be left out of pocket either as it doesn't seem to have been your fault - he equally should have checked up on what he was getting - caveat emptor is an important principle when buying secondhand. The card might not have been operating in Hypermemory mode anyway, I can't tell from the pictures. :)
 
Am I right in thinking the card uses the dedicated 128MB memory first then dips into the system memory for the other 128MB if an application requires it?

He reckons the card is using 895MB!!

If he gets a similar budget card which just has 128MB dedicated memory, wouldnt he get the same result?

He wants me to send him the £17.50 plus postage before he will return the card!! I think that is unfair as I will be £3.50 out of pocket (not that I give a toss about the £3.50 but its the principle.

Anyway I'm glad you agree with me, all I have been is honest, polite and helpful offering him a refund if he was not satisfied but I do feel like my card has been used as a stop gap as he has only just sold a 7900GTO!

I could be wrong but it does make you think about future trades
 
BigB@dJ@y said:
Am I right in thinking the card uses the dedicated 128MB memory first then dips into the system memory for the other 128MB if an application requires it?

He reckons the card is using 895MB!!
Click to expand...
Yes, the card will use up to 128Mb of system ram, if needed. He has 767Mb of system ram 'available', but the card can only use 128Mb of it.

If you told him that the card was an "ATI X600 256MB Hypermemory PCIe card" then the onus was on him to have known what 'hypermemory' is. Either way, he should definitely pay for the return postage as it was a genuine mistake and it's the right thing to do.
Tell him to send you the card if he wants his money back.
 
Vista uses a lot more memory than XP, but that is really what you want it to do as it means stuff will open faster if it is in memory.

The card can never use more than 128MB of system memory so if he says the card is using 895MB he is talking ********.

I would not have refunded the card as he should have spent more time researching what he wanted to buy (assuming you stated it was a Hyper memory card before the sale)
 
The guy is an idiot, he should be complaining at the manufacturer, or shutting up because you sold the card in good faith. Not your fault it doesn't work as he (mis)understood it would. It still works, ffs. :eek:
 
Well he does not want to pay the postage and is adamant that if I had told it had hypermemory he would not have bought it.

I cant be bothered and have told him I will refund his money plus postage :mad:

If I was buying a card to work with Vista I would be looking a little higher than the "Super budget" range. He says that there is an X600 which does have 256MB dedicated (the only one I could find is an X600XT which this obviously is not) not that it would make much of a difference as he told me a normal 128MB card will do!!!!!

The guy is no novice to PCs and I do feel let down by the whole experience.

Moral of this story-

Tell the buyer every little bit of information you can (even if it means you looking it up). I may add a disclaimer to my future sales (I did not advertise this card just replied to a wanted thread :( )
 
If he's happy with a 128MB card, then tell him to disable "shared graphics memory" with ATi Tray Tools. That will force the card to use only it's own 128MB of ram, and leave his system ram alone.
 
BigB@dJ@y said:
not that it would make much of a difference as he told me a normal 128MB card will do!!!!!
Click to expand...
So he is complaining the card has Hyper Memory possibility and would be happy with just 128MB, then he should disable Hyper Memory as Sir Random said and have a 128MB videocard.
 
At that res, you need a better card than a X600 to run Aero nice and smooth, he's just miffed that the card he bought doesnt cope and wants a refund. You should tell him to sod off.
 
Lanz said:
At that res, you need a better card than a X600 to run Aero nice and smooth, he's just miffed that the card he bought doesnt cope and wants a refund. You should tell him to sod off.
Click to expand...
Maybe he is one of those people that see 256MB and think, "oh, it has 256MB so it must be a fast card" :o
 
Thanks guys, He's now offered to refund me the extra postage I paid him.

Looks like I'll keep my X600 as a back up (touch wood)!!
 
If i were you i'd tell him that you'll refund half the money now, half when you receive the card back. He's asking you to believe that he will send the card when, as you said, he's just sold a 7900GTO. That leads me to believe he won't have a card to run his comp, so make sure you don't get stung here mate!
 
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