Video memory allocation on Aspire 7520G

I recently bought an Acer Aspire 7520G, with 2 GB DDRAM and a Geforce 8600GS of 512 DDRAM dedicated video, which can go up to 1279 MB RAM. As this is my first laptop I use, I only had desktop PC's and only on Windows XP Pro, I'd really like to know why in my System Information I see Total Physical Memory 2,046.31 MB and the Available Physical Memory is 1.03 GB? Where is the rest of the physical memory gone?

And also is there a way to control the amount of RAM that the video card will use? Because I haven't noticed anything in that respect in BIOS. I seem to have this strange impression that even if the video has 512 dedicated, it will still have in use up to 1279 MB RAM, the maximum for this video card? This memory allocation is killing me right now, cause I have no idea when it works, if it works.

Thank you very much for help.

 

are you now using vista ?
vista uses more ram for prefetch so vista will seem faster because the the prefetch is not in a temp file on hard drive.
check in BIOS for dvmt. what this does it checks how much ram you have and gives what it thinks is ok for the video.
so the more ram you have the more DVMT will allocate more to the grapchics
Phil

 

Yes, I am on Vista now... so if I only run applications that do not require more than 512 that the video has already, that means that I will still have the 2 GB of RAM from my laptop... right? If I use it for gaming, then DVMT will allocate more to the video, as it sees fit for the respective application?

 

thats it. handy when you are using ram intensive programs and not using much graphics

 

i think Intel is lying to us Hoggie...

 

For what?

 

about that DVMT... i think it's a marketing ploy!!

 

DVMT on my laptop is well handy but i use xp and can see when the ram is being moved about.
i use dxdiag to see whats going on. when i have my TV plugged in i can see the graphics ram rise to heady 512.
and sitting here now with only msn and forum running its showing 32. check in your BIOS for DVMT.its well handy

just started youtube and its just gone up to 212mb

 

x3100 doesn't allocate extra memory than the usual 10-12mb when watching movie or a clip from youtube..

 

i can't seem to find the DVMT anywhere in MY BIOS....

so i have no basis for factual information

 

No DVMT in my bios either. You have Intel IGP? Go to Intel Graphic Media Accelerator Control panel. In the upper right corner there is a " i" buttion(information). There you can see what the igp allocates in the moment..

 

thanks for that tidbit of info ATG... i'm always learning from you... i just hope to return the favor