Fw: Re: warning RAM

[Dennis Veatch]

On Monday 09 June 2003 01:15 pm, Matthew Carpenter wrote:
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2003 12:54:02 -0400
> From: Matthew Carpenter <matt at eisgr.com>
> To: linux-users at linux-sxs.org
> Subject: Re: warning RAM
>
>
> On Mon, 2 Jun 2003 19:10:39 -0400
>
> Dennis Veatch <dveatch at woh.rr.com> wrote:
> > My point was that some video cards (that is built ins) do use system ram.
> > Anyway have you tried appending mem=xxxx to lilo or grub?
>
> It's not a bad thing to keep in mind, although since I JUST (like
> yesterday) got myself the Nvidia Ti4200 (128Mb) for my new box I CERTAINLY
> hope the vendor didn't pull some sort of memory-sharing shenanigan...  I'm
> certain that it isn't..

It was only recently that I discovered they do pull such punches. I was 
looking around for a new system for a friend and noticed on some ads in small 
print the video was shared memory. I was surprised and after that I realized 
why some of these systems were so cheap. Personally I think it is a load of 
bull that companies would do that. OTOH from a business sense the product can 
be made cheaper. 

I am reasonably sure (well, guessing) an add in video card memory will not be 
shared. If someone with more knowledge knows more/better I would like to 
hear.

>
> However, just to ask the question: Does your main board ALSO have a Video
> card built in, and if so, is it enabled and using shared memory?  This is
> very unlikely since those cards wouldn't ordinarily use 128MB shared ram.
> Typically they'll steal 8, 16, or 32MB.
>

No built in video. I do have an IBM pc server with built in. However it has 
additional video memory sockets to add more. In those type of cases I would 
not expect it to be shared. 

This is a guess but I imagine the built in video could be turned off in bios 
if you plug in another. I haven't yet seem a system with more than 64MB 
shared but that don't mean they are not out there.

> I haven't installed SuSE 8.2 on my new box yet but I'll let you know if I
> see anything similar.


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