Windows 7 showing far less RAM than should be....

[pparks1]

Yeah, I failed to see the benefit of 64-bit Windows with this card. The only thing I could justify was the extra 500-700MB you would get back of the 4GB by moving to 64-bit...since the 32-bit usually sees 3.15-3.50GB.

 

[Spice Boy]

hmmm......

Im torn now as to either stick to what I got or to do a clean install with x64....

Realistically what are the pro/con for both?

And if I do decide to stick with x86, what can I really do about the RAM hole?

 

[Spice Boy]

Sorry if Im asking blatently stupid questions but Id much rather learn from your guys then try it myself blind and end up setting fire to my house somehow!

 

[H2SO4]

Going x64 probably is not going to help. It appears as if this card is setting 1+ GB of reserved space regardless.

Yeah, I failed to see the benefit of 64-bit Windows with this card. The only thing I could justify was the extra 500-700MB you would get back of the 4GB by moving to 64-bit...since the 32-bit usually sees 3.15-3.50GB.

64-bit will help. Win7 runs WDDM, not XPDM. The "shared memory" counter in the DxDiag output corresponds to virtualised video memory made available to the card for use when necessary - though not exclusively. If you run x64 Windows, your own DxDiag's will almost certainly show similar "shared memory" regions, even though you won't see that "hardware reserved" hole that the OP sees in his resmon screenshot.

Sorry if Im asking blatently stupid questions but Id much rather learn from your guys then try it myself blind and end up setting fire to my house somehow!

There's nothing the slightest bit stupid about what you asked. On the contrary. As logicearth said, you may want to first test the eval version of x64 Windows. I'm confident that given your video card it should resolve your "hardware masked" memory issue.

And if I do decide to stick with x86, what can I really do about the RAM hole?

Really? Nothing