Video ram for M100-JG2? (advertised as 128mb but displays 64mb)

Hello. I have been considering buying a toshiba notebook and spent some time at Best Buy today looking at the M100-JG2. Toshiba.ca gives these specs for the video controller:

Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 945GM Express Chiset with 128MB DDR shared video memory.

I noticed that with the models on display at Best Buy, windows xp displays the same video controller but only 64mb of ram. The sales person seemed baffled. They advertise it as 128mb, so does every site/store I can find. I found this post through google that seems to give a little information but I don't really understand it: http://asia.cnet.com/howto/askcnetasia/0,39051080,39311356-39002123q,00.htm

If anyone can help me figure this out I would really appreciate it, thanks.

 

It shifts automatically... But if you're going to buy intergraded graphics, they are pretty much all the same.

If you're looking for even a decent gpu, i would not recommend this. This thing is only suitable for word documents and internet browsing

 

So it truly is 128mb even though it was displaying 64mb? Weird.

According to my research this computer should be decent for most things except for gaming. It seems like there's a major price jump if you want dedicated graphics and I don't really play pc games so I'm thinking this will probably be good enough.

 

Integrated Graphics aren't really suited to anything but normal, general productivity - the reason the graphics display only 64MBs of RAM is because the Graphics Controller dynamically switches the amount of RAM taken from the main system for its own needs.

 

So basically the areas where integrated video would cause problems will be playing games or some kind of autocad or 3d type of software right?

 

It wouldn't cause any problems - its just in terms of performance, the notebook will fall flat on its face.

 

I've been reading about this chipset and graphic controller and apparently you can set a fixed memory amount in the bios that the OS can't use. I wonder if they set up the laptops at BestBuy with 64mb fixed.

 

Yes - you can change the amount of RAM set to the graphics card or switch it to a dynamic mode.

 

That's good to know. Thanks for the info guys. Now if only I could find this thing on sale. Best price here is $1500 Canadian.

 

I found a nice deal through Staples and purchased the M100-JG2, I posted about the deal here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=1333372#post1333372

 

Oh yeah, and the M100 I bought displays 128mb of video memory.