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What to do if Windows consume a higher amount of shared video memory. I have a NVidia GeForce 8800 GTS gpu in my system with AMD64 5200 X2 Processor. I only has 2GB RAM. I am using 64bit of Windows Vista. I checked the specs and found that around 766MB of RAM is consumed as shared video memory. So to some extent that would be usable. I really do not need that much of video memory. Is there a option available in Vista to turn that feature off.
I think you can do that through bios. It is due to your onboard video memory. Still Vista is not using your gpu as the default video controllers. You can simply go in bios and looks for options that can disable onboard graphics. It is the only best way to fix the issue.
Yes that can be change through bios. My experience says that there is no option available by which you can completely disable it. And for reducing that you have to check in bios. I am not sure about any applications. This is quiet maintain by Vista itself. The shared video memory is set reserved by Vista to configure your video output. Reducing or managing that can be done only from bios.
Just for that reason I increased my ram to 4GB. I am having a gaming system. A amount of video memory was blocked and due to which some of my applications were affected. After adding 2GB more my softwares started working a bit well. I had checked in bios and found that there are option to enable and disable the same. You can instead of your onboard video, allow the gpu as default graphic card.
to quote some forums:
*Wall of text hits you for 10,000 damage...*
I will do my best to clear this up for people as it greatly concerned me as well. I was using Vista 32bit with 2Gb of ram. My system was sharing 756Mb of my ram to Video and with some lazy research I found that 64bit Vista would allow for more ram to be used...so I upgraded to 64bit and bought another 2Gb of ram (4Gb total). Now my shared memory is 1780Mb. I nearly threw the PC out of the window. Well, forums all over say a million different things so I swallowed my pride and readied my Visa and called Microsoft Technical Support. (it ended up not costing me)
Vista does share a large chunk of your system memory for Video Purposes. However, Vista does not work the same way we are used to with onboard video solutions. Shared memory in Vista does not mean the memory is gone purely to video. In fact, it is hardly ever used for video purposes unless you do a lot of modeling, rendering, or play games at extremely high settings. (or just have a very low end video card) The memory is primarily still used for every day computer useage which is why you do not notice any slowdown on your system, and if you have, it's highly unlikely that it is because your memory is being shared. I wish I could explain it better but if this doesn't ease your concerns you can always call them...they seem to love talking about how wonderful they're memory design is.
I couldn't agree more. We are in a technology transition. 5.25 floppies to CD, 133mhz FSB to 1333mhz FSB. As all technological transitions in the past, it will take a year or two but it will happen. 32bit has been around a long time, 64bit is the next step and to be honest, this transition has been far too slow.Quote:
Originally Posted by phypps
Search the registry for "shared video memory". you will find all the settings there undersome Nvidia key.
It changes the total RAM in taskmanager but not on the device page. If still have trouble I can look for the regkey path:)