ATI Radeon Express 200m video card shared memory

I have an ASUS notebook with an ATI Radeon Express 200m video card which takes up 128mb shared memory. I only have 512 mb of RAM so I want the shared memory to be 64mb only. I asked the technicians where I bought the laptop to change the shared memory and they said that it cannot be changed (they've checked the BIOS and found out there is no option to change the shared memory there - and they said that you can only change the shared memory thru the BIOS). Is it possible to change the shared memory used by the card? If it is, is there another way?

 

that is pretty strange, I only know of changing it through the BIOS, have you tried downloading the latest bios version?

otherwise just buy more RAM , you can never have enough ram....



Insane

 

I suggest you check the BIOS yourself. Notebook BIOSes are pretty plain and easy to use. There must be an option to change the video memory.
Are you sure the card is taking 128mb right now? The notebooks with ATI x200 that I have seen are pretty smart about it and allocate the memory automatically (that is 128mb only if you have more thatn 512mb RAM)

 

I've checked it myself and I cannot find where to change it too.

Yes, both the BIOS and Windows report only 384mb of system memory and 128 shared memory.

I haven't tried that yet. I am not familiar with this procedure (I might botch the BIOS). (Laptop is new and still under warranty.)

Do you think I should ask the people where I bought the notebook do the BIOS firmware update to my laptop? After, all a 512 MB RAM notebook shouldn't have 128 MB of its RAM as shared memory. And the notebook catalog says that the video card will only use 64MB memory as shared memory.

 

As I understand it, the memory taken by the ATI x200 is dynamic, and depends on either the amount needed by the gpu at any given moment or the total amount of system ram installed.

I've never heard of a workaround for the user to set the shared gpu memory amount, although it could be hiding in the BIOS somewhere, I guess. You can scroll through the BIOS to look for this kind of thing - just be sure when you exit that you choose the DISCARD CHANGES option and it's impossible to screw up the BIOS then - it's like you never entered it in the first place.

An easier fix to your memory issue would be to simply buy a 256 or 512 RAM stick and put it into the second memory slot - problem solved!

 

I agress with ClearSkies & the others. You can never have too much RAM. Most likely as ClearSkies states it all depends on what the GPU needs.

If you have looked through every Bios option and dont see it, make sure the bios is up to date.

Hope this all helps

 

Shared Memory Architecture used to allow the user to set the maximum amount of memory available to the video card, but ever since the Intel 855 chipset that used the integrated GMA850 video solution it has been "dynamic" and not user definable.

Therefore there is no need to look in your BIOS because it won't be there...it is only on the chipset and it cannot be set by the user.

"Dynamic" means that it will pull as much from your system memory as the video card demands at any given time, like an accelerator on your car.

Therefore if you feel it is pulling too much, your only solution is to add more system memory. If you only have 512MB now, that is really not enough particularly if you are using Windows XP which can take as much as 256MB by itself. With Windows XP and a "dynamic" shared video solution 1,024MB is the minimum memory your should have, but it should be plenty for your uses.