As I was adjusting the advanced settings for my monitor I came across this.
Total Available Graphics Memory: 757MB
Dedicated Video Memory: 510MB
System Video Memory: 0MB
Shared System Memory: 246MB
My computer is using a Dedicated Video Card "Radeon X1600 Pro" with 512MB of memory. The system memory in my computer is only 1GB. So I was wondering if anyone knew how to disable this Shared System Memory as I do not want to dedicate 1/4 of my computers memory resources towards my video just in case the video cards 512MB is not enough to run the Windows Aero interface or some low end game I play.
I have been searching MS help, these forums and googling to no avail.
This seems absolutely ridiculous. The whole purpose of having a dedicated video card is so that you don't share your systems memory. I need that memory for running programs and looking at pr0n. I don't play intensive 3D shooters that may need that extra video memory, if I did I would run an SLI setup.
I think Vista takes your Aperature size set in BIOS and reports it as shared video memory. Of course, if your onboard video is still enabled somehow, then that is your problem.
Vista is using a different Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) than XP (and before) used.
Quote :
In WDDM, the operating system can accurately account for each of the graphics memory contributors and report available memory precisely through new APIs. The following are some of the clients that use this reporting:
·Windows System Assessment Tool (WinSAT) checks for the available graphics memory and takes the action to turn off or on the Premium Aero Glass experience based on the amount of available memory. ·The Desktop Windows Manager (dwm.exe) is depends on the exact state of the available graphics memory on WDDM systems.
·DirectX games and other graphics applications for Windows Vista need to be able to get accurate values describing the state of the graphics memory in the system. An inaccurate graphics memory number could drastically change the game experience for the user, for example.
Thus, Windows Vista enables the critically important capability of reporting the correct amount of graphics memory to the end-user.
Vista is not dedicating the Shared memory to graphics. This memory can be used by programs if needed, but if the Shared memory is not enough additional to what Vista needs, it will start shutting down some graphic-intensive interface features - such as Aero.
