GeForce 8600M GS shared or discrete 256mb?

Ok, as we speak i'm at futureshop about to purchase a HP dv9548ca. Below are the spec's

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...16&lc=en&cc=ca&dlc=en&product=3444206&lang=en

The video memory says " Up to 1023mb", does this mean that the graphics card use's system ram 100%. Or is it 256mb discreet?

I think these futureshop employees are lying to me, please help!

 

It's 256 Mb dedicated. I think the employees are lying because of ignorance, not manipulation

 

moved to gaming...

 

It means it can allocate 1023mb of 'Video Ram', though most is emulated VRam from your stock RAM. It should have 256mb of discrete Video RAM from the 8600GS, however, I can not confirm it(everywhere it says 'up to 1023mb').

 

Dude, because of your karma i'm going to trust you and go ahead of buy it. I have never seen a 8600m GS that was 100% shared before.

 

It defeats the purpose of a dedicated GPU if all the RAM is taken from the system memory. *Common Sense*

 

The 8600m GS had 255MB dedicated to the card it shares 256MB of the system RAM, thus the 511mb. You can manually set the card to use upto 768mb of system RAM, which is 1023mb total.

 

I have this notebook, yes the graphics are 256 dedicated, but the OS is 64-bit and there are known issues with the newer games like bioshock and halo 2, which I haven't resolved yet. There are driver updates online but sadly the laptop gpu isn't supported as much as the cards. So it will be a while before you see the drivers.

Just out of curiosity what are you using it for, if its games then yes this gpu could take you to about 2 more years but don't expect to play crysis at full. This gpu is more mainstream, if you want a better performance get 8600m GT or 8700m GT.

Overall it is a good machine with minor annoyances such as the small shift key and the drag on the touch pad but its a good machine

 

Yes and this is a Dx10 feature so every card (yes even a 8800ULTRA can take 766mb of your system RAM.

256MB dedicated, and will useûp to 766MB (on 2GB system ram) ofd systemram is needed

 

What are the issues with 64 bit and the newer games? I ask this because I just purchased a computer with ultimate 64-bit.

Thanks in advance!

 

none, and upcoming games like crysis support 64bit instructions so you get a 10-15% CPU performance increasement directly

 

Thank you for your response!

One more question, as I don't know a whole lot about 64-bit yet, does a game/program have to be written for 64-bit to gain the benefits of a 64-bit OS? Will having a 64-bit OS increase the performance of just the OS if other applications are made for 32-bit?

Any help and explanations are greatly appreciated!

 

During the summer season I'm a heavy gamer, however when school starts for me during the fall i will be using it for mostly school, and since i'm a comp sci student, mostly programming. I won't be taking it to lectures all the time since it's nearly 8lbs, however the occasional move around is ok for me.

I noticed that the TV Tuner package on this notebook is not Analog. Any idea if it's better?

 

How do you manually set it to 768? I'm a noob to this and I can't seem to google it.

 

I got the Asus G1S-AK005C (nvidia geforce 8600M GT 256MB dedicated)
I know that it can use 768MB shared system memory, does the laptop uses this automaticly ? Or do you have to manually set it???

Please respond

 

Video card borrows your system memory when needed and returns it to your system when it's done. You don't have to anything for this to happen.

 

I am going to upgrade to 4GB ram (now i got 2GB) and I'm going to buy vista home premium 64 bit for my 4GB....

Vista uses like 40% (2GB ram) of my system memory and than when I play games my video card can't use a lot of shared memory, right?
So if i have 4GB my video card will be able to use all the 768MB shared memory? (So I can put more setting on high on games like crysis?) .

 

Shared memory won't make games like Crysis run magically at high settings, the biggest limitation is the architecture of the card and how advanced it is. The 8600GT (GDDR3 memory) is the most powerful card for 15" laptops but others on this forum will tell you that it will struggle to play the most modern games at resolutions above 1280x800.