Simviation Forums

My computer says it can use up to 32 MB of shared memory.  I know what it means by that, and that it can dedicate up to 32 MB of my ram (384 MB total) to the video.  What I want to know is how that is set.  In my BIOS, it only offers 1 MB, or another, lesser choice for video.  Does windows XP increase and use the other 31MB or ram for video as needed, or is there a way to manually increase it and get an extra frame per second or two.  I have a vid card on layaway now.   A GeForce MX 440 SE PCI with 64 MB ram, so it isn't a big issue.  Just one of those "what if" questions.  I also work retail and sell computers, so an aanswer might come in handy some time.

read your mb manual.  it should say how in there.  it's either in the bios or jumpers.  shared memory is the absolute worst.  first if all, if you have one of those intel motherboards, with intel's "extreme graphics" video chipsets, there's absolutely nothing extreme about it.  it's horrible.  the first thing i did when i got my computer was to buy a decent video card.  i noticed the improvement immediately.

I'd use the geforce4 and forget shared memory. That 32 mb could be better used for other things.

I agree just about any add on card will yield better results even most pci cards than shared memory I upgraded my first computer to a Gforce2 mx 400 for 30 bucks and kicked the onboard to shreds. The newer ones like the 9000 onboard is better but If you have 512 Ram and subract 256 thats  like 256 Ram if its all being allocated to video memory subtract 128 roughly for XP and that will leave 128 for FS9 no way.