MX7118 Shared Video Memory

Greetings All,

As mentioned in a previous post I just recently purchased an MX7118. It's got the ATI X200 chipset. Now, I've read conflicting information regarding the type of video in this machine. The specs say X300 but most posts I've read point out the X200 and say that's the video as well. True. Sort of. My understanding is that the X200 chip set incorporates the video technology from the X300 retail desktop technology. (And I could be wrong which is neither here nor there as I'm not really questioning the above, just giving a bit of background.)

Now the question: Out of the box the notebook comes with 512MB of ram and you can pick an amount of video memory to share up to 64MB. I just popped in another 512MB and now the bios gives me the opportunity to use up to 128MB of shared memory. Is there a limit in the internal graphics to only allow 64? Or is the chipset and bios smart enough to only allow 64MB when only 512MB total is available and will use 128 if 1Gig is available.

Any takers on this one?

Thanks in advance,
Fleet

 

The tag at Best Buy says its an X300, but its an X200 i checked. When we first got the product it said it was a 3200+ on the tag too but its a 3400 lol. Sometimes they just F stuff up

 

I retrieved this direct from ATI's website.

"Leveraging the power of ATI discrete graphics processing, Radeon Xpress 200 delivers ATI?s next generation of industry leading integrated graphics. Based on Radeon X300 core technology, users benefit from a variety of features including Vertex Shader 2.0, Pixel Shader 2.0 and improved anti-aliasing capabilities. The graphics power of the Radeon X200 is backed up by Catalyst, the most stable WHQL-certified graphics driver on the market today. In addition, through ATI?s innovative HyperMemory technology, Radeon Xpress onboard graphics are further accelerated with up to 128 MB of system memory."

Guess I answered my own question as well

 

It's not worth saying "sometimes." BestBuy does it excessively.

 

haha, yeh it seems to be on notebooks more than anything... dumbasses

 

I jus put 512 of ram in the same notebook and i was wondering the samething fsenseman. I also have to agree best buy salesmen r dumbasses and their specs are always wrong on the tags.

 

I just purchased the MX6428. AMD Turion 37 - 2.0, 1 gig mem, 80 hd, ati 200m radeon & 64 shared video memory.

I'm confused about the video memory also. Can you update the memory to 128? I looked in the bios but I can't get to that section to update it.

Any info on this would be extremely helpful...

 

I find that highly insulting. The guys who make the tags are dumbasses. Salesmen dont make them. Look through my posts. Look at the sticky im in the process of making. I work for best buy, and i dont think too many guys around here would call me a dumbass. Maybe some of them are dumbasses, but i put a lot of work into never being one of those. Dont make generalizations or stereotypes. Some drivers may allow you to access more memory if needed.

 

Not at all.
Lucky me, the reps at my BestBuy aren't all that idiotic though. Most of them know what they are talking about. Another BestBuy somewhat near me, has some reps who only want you to buy. I remember asking one about the 7510 harddrive (I had thought that it had been upgraded to 5400 rpms), and I was told that it (100gb 4200) was one of the faster ones on the market today. Last I looked, 4200rpms isn't exactly considered the Ferrari of harddrives (as much as I hate ferraris, some people wouldn't appreciate the analogy if I said 'Cadillac V-series' or even 'ZO6').

 

haha, yeh 4200 is kinda the bottom level there.

 

Is there anything I can do to optimize the x200m, after boosting it up to 128? Newest drivers maybe?

 

>>Is there anything I can do to optimize the x200m, after boosting it up to 128? Newest drivers maybe?



Keeping current drivers on it might help. But this is no graphics speed demon by any stretch of the imagination. It's pretty low on the list. The machine overall is nice and for a general boost in performance I'd say the memory upgrade is the best place to put your money. I wouldn't consider this laptop for games but that's not why I bought it. That's what my desktop is for

Regards,
Fleet

 

Hello,

I have an ATI radeon Express 200M card as well. I tried to play battefield 2142 with all the options turned up. What a joke. LOL>. Did everything bad except lock up. This was running the stock ATI drivers. I also discovered to my dismay that ATI wont support laptop graphic cards after about six months so I was left to find custom drivers.

I am now running DHZEROPOINT drivers and believe it or not I was able to turn up every option except anti aliasing. Im only a few steps away from maxing that out too! I also turned on the 128 of shared video ram. Enabling shared ram did help, but only because I have a decent system processor.

And yes this entire system is ready to blow at the seams at any moment, but it will now play very nicely!

IN summary. try new drivers. Shut off all unused processes on the system, and try shared memory. Some laptops will actually lose gaming performance with this, but in my case it worked.