The "64MB NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS" Questions

Hey guys? I don't know much about video cards, and I was browsing around, and I found this. What does the 64MB mean? Do 8400M and GS have any significant meaning? Is this video card okay with...

Fable: The Lost Chapters
Starcraft+Brood War
World of Warcraft (I have never played it.)

?

 

64MB is how much dedicated video memory is on your graphics card, measured in Mega Bytes. The 8400 denotes the card's position in Nvidia's current lineup (the 8 series), which for your card means in the low mid-range, performance wise. The M means it's a mobile (laptop) card. The GS differentiates it from the other two 8400M cards, the G and the GT. Your GS is right in the middle of the 8400M series. The card is decent enough for casual gaming, and absolutely fine for those games. For more info on how this card measures up to all the other laptop cards available, read Chaz's GPU Guide.

 

That's strange. I don't think there is a 64mb 8400m GS. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_8_Series#GeForce_8400M_Series

 

Perfectly fine for those games.

 

I have the same card, I havent personally played those games but it should be fine. For some pics of games running on roughly the same hardware check out my thread here http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=191298

Depending on the rest of the specs on the notebook ou will actually have between 320 and 1gb of video ram available for use through turbocache sharing. @ 1gb system ram you will have 320mb total, @ 2gb you will have 1gb.

 

johnyd, you said in one of your posts that running a game on a laptop running on batteries is better than the direct AC plug-in+no battery. Why?

 

Hey thnksfrthmmrs... second one down of the chart.

 

I know but that's bus width (bits) which is different from Size (Megabytes). When referring to how much memory a graphics card uses we look for "size".

 

And under "size" it says 64/128/256, at least on my screen it does....

 

What I actually wrote was

"Also I was running on batteries at the time these were taken so I should get better performance on power"

On batteries the laptop runs slower to save power so that the batteries will last longer.

 

My HP dv2500t, along with all others, come with a 64 MB version of the card.

It's sad really...

 

The 64mb is in the vaio sz6 to.

I wish people would stop quoting wikipedia

..it's hardly a reliable source is it?

 

You can run Fable: The Lost Chapters for sure but just not with everything maxed out with 4x AA, my 8600m GT has problem holding up 25 FPS with those settings. -_-ll

 

Why turn on AA before everything else is maxed?

 

Oh, okay thnksfrthmmrs. I realize my error. You do realize that you have just "burned" someone. Pat yourself on the back. It's actually difficult for me to do that.

Also, thanks for helping me understand my question johnyd about a notebook's performance on a battery rather than directly from the AC cable.

 

Hey guys? What's 4XAA? 25FPS?

When I read FPS, the first thing that crossed my mind was Feet Per Second, as in the plastic BB speed fired from an airsoft gun.

However, graphics have nothing to do with mechanics.

So what does FPS mean in computer jargon?

 

FPS means frames per second, or how many frames your graphics card can render in a second. Your human eye maxes out at about 30, so aim for 30+ FPS for smooth gaming.

AA is anti-aliasing, which is a technique used to smooth out aliasing (rough, pixelly edges on objects). At high resolutions this isn't needed at much because the distortion is reduced (since the objects become smaller).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antialiasing

You can find more info. here.

 

Okay, thanks SmoothTofu. I just had a Biology lesson as well which was actually useful, than that other electron transport chain stuff.

 

Sorry, I meant to say:

 

That's the card you get in the pavilion dv2500t....

 

Do you mean Dragonpet's video card or the topic of this forum?

 

Hi All

I have a similar question. I've just bought a HP DV2630ea which has the 8400GN with 64m dedicated memory. The documentation says it can be increased to use up to 800MB shared, but I can find no way of doing this. Running Vista Home Premium with 2GB of ram. Help please

thanks

 

It handles the video memory allocation automatically, in the hardware. You don't need to do anything.

 

Thanks Odin423

My problem is that I want to increase the amount of shared memory used - currently it uses none, and only uses the dedicated 64M. I want to change my system so it uses a dedicated 64m plus a shared 64 or even 128Mb. Does anybody know how I can do it? the documentation says it's possible but there's no explaination as to how

 

Nope, it uses shared memory as well, otherwise Vista would crash on load (it opens with more than 64mb of graphics textures for Aero).

 

So Why when I try running games that require more than 64m memory does it report I have not sufficient graphics memory? Is there any information on how shared graphics memory works with Vista because it seems I don't understand fully how this works

thanks for the help

 

Ack! Let's not get into the "eye fps perception" again. Everything is relative. 30fps for a fast action shooter may not be enough. For an RTS game, probably just fine. But mileage may vary. That being said, usually 30fps is the minimum golden number gamers try to achieve, although some think they can't have anything less than 60. I've played games where it seemed smooth, and then ran FRAPS and was surprised that it was running at "only" 23-24 fps.

 

having read around i realise I didn't fully understand it. Graphics memory is indeed dynamically allocated with Vista so there's nothing I need to do reall

Thanks for the help

 

No problem. Though out of curiosity, what games tell you that you don't have enough graphics memory? And how much system RAM do you have?