can i get full 4 Gb RAM for my specifications?

Petey7 said:

Sorry to say that after half an hour of searching the consensus is that it can't be done in Vista/7. Shared system memory is now controlled by the OS, not the video card driver. It can be done in XP, but you have 4gigs of RAM, so there would be no point. It still seems odd that there is not a registry change that can do it. It looks like a lot of really smart people have tried and failed. Sorry for making you think I could help when I can't *hangs head in sham*

dats ok,i appreciate dat u al are trying so much to find the solution..thanx to all

Btw, even if its a 512 Mb card and it uses another 512 Mb of my RAM, why would it show total 1778 Mb in dxdiag? shouldn it be limited to 1 Gb only?

taralmehta15 said:

Btw, even if its a 512 Mb card and it uses another 512 Mb of my RAM, why would it show total 1778 Mb in dxdiag? shouldn it be limited to 1 Gb only?

Already posted a link explaining why it shows like that,

Video Memory Virtualization - A Brief Guide

oh k. so on the whole,i cant get al 4 Gb RAM even for x64? pretty disappointing coz i specially upgraded from 2 GB to 4 Gb just b4 3 days for it.. ne other option for it?

stormy13 said:

taralmehta15 said:

Btw, even if its a 512 Mb card and it uses another 512 Mb of my RAM, why would it show total 1778 Mb in dxdiag? shouldn it be limited to 1 Gb only?

Already posted a link explaining why it shows like that,

Video Memory Virtualization - A Brief Guide

oh ya,i dint understood it a bit..

"What it doesn't do is take anything from system memory unless the full amount of graphics memory has been used, and then will only use what is required and release it once it is no longer needed."

what does this mean?does it mean it returns the memory back as RAM wn not needed?a bit confused.

Btw reps added to all 3 of u......

Petey7 said:

Thanks you for rep. Always appreciated. I've read a lot about the whole shared memory thing, but it seems to work differently when a TurboCache card is installed. The only way I know for you to get all 4gigs is to get a different video card, which doesn't seem worth it to me unless you were thinking of upgrading anyways. And technically it is still better than what you had. At least you have 3GB instead of 1.

i got both 1 Gb replaced by 2Gb so i guess only 1 replacement would ve been enough..neways, do tel me if u get any more info.....Thanx

You can change the video card all you want but if what it says here,

The system memory that is reported in the System Information dialog box in Windows Vista is less than you expect if 4 GB of RAM is installed

applies to your motherboard, the best6 you're going to get is 3 GB. From the KB article,

For Windows Vista to use all 4 GB of memory on a computer that has 4 GB of memory installed, the computer must meet the following requirements:

• The chipset must support at least 8 GB of address space. Chipsets that have this capability include the following:
  
  • Intel 975X
  • Intel P965
  • Intel 955X on Socket 775
  • Chipsets that support AMD processors that use socket F, socket 940, socket 939, or socket AM2. These chipsets include any AMD socket and CPU combination in which the memory controller resides in the CPU.
  
  
• The CPU must support the x64 instruction set. The AMD64 CPU and the Intel EM64T CPU support this instruction set.
• The BIOS must support the memory remapping feature. The memory remapping feature allows for the segment of system memory that was previously overwritten by the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) configuration space to be remapped above the 4 GB address line. This feature must be enabled in the BIOS configuration utility on the computer. View your computer product documentation for instructions that explain how to enable this feature. Many consumer-oriented computers may not support the memory remapping feature. No standard terminology is used in documentation or in BIOS configuration utilities for this feature. Therefore, you may have to read the descriptions of the various BIOS configuration settings that are available to determine whether any of the settings enable the memory remapping feature.
• An x64 (64-bit) version of Windows Vista must be used.

Contact the computer vendor to determine whether your computer meets these requirements.

You have all of that but the chipset. Your motherboard has the Intel 945G chipset, which isn't in the list. That brings up the note there as well,

Note When the physical RAM that is installed on a computer equals the address space that is supported by the chipset, the total system memory that is available to the operating system is always less than the physical RAM that is installed. For example, consider a computer that has an Intel 975X chipset that supports 8 GB of address space. If you install 8 GB of RAM, the system memory that is available to the operating system will be reduced by the PCI configuration requirements. In this scenario, PCI configuration requirements reduce the memory that is available to the operating system by an amount that is between approximately 200 MB and approximately 1 GB. The reduction depends on the configuration.

That chipset supports up to 4 GB of ram and you have 4 GB of ram installed so the address space has to go somewhere, and as a result it gets taken from the installed memory.

Unfortunately in your case it isn't the video card you need to change but the motherboard, if you want to use the full 4 GB of ram.

what if i install xp x64 version? then also it would share video memory like this?