From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu May 10 20:14:23 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D690616A405 for ; Thu, 10 May 2007 20:14:23 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from kline@tao.thought.org) Received: from tao.thought.org (dsl231-043-140.sea1.dsl.speakeasy.net [216.231.43.140]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4B6FE13C45A for ; Thu, 10 May 2007 20:14:23 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from kline@tao.thought.org) Received: from tao.thought.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by tao.thought.org (8.13.8/8.13.1) with ESMTP id l4AKHBeA059959; Thu, 10 May 2007 13:17:11 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from kline@tao.thought.org) Received: (from kline@localhost) by tao.thought.org (8.13.8/8.13.1/Submit) id l4AKHAjC059958; Thu, 10 May 2007 13:17:10 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from kline) Date: Thu, 10 May 2007 13:17:09 -0700 From: Gary Kline To: Tom Evans Message-ID: <20070510201709.GA59822@thought.org> References: <20070509220908.GA50232@thought.org> <20070509230946.GA50585@thought.org> <20070510013453.GA52298@thought.org> <5CA2CC6B-72B6-46A1-9712-E258CFB4EB11@gmail.com> <4642A7F9.8070707@u.washington.edu> <17987.2963.612138.380335@jerusalem.litteratus.org> <46433EF8.2080805@u.washington.edu> <1178814197.1231.48.camel@zoot.mintel.co.uk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <1178814197.1231.48.camel@zoot.mintel.co.uk> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.2i X-Organization: Thought Unlimited. Public service Unix since 1986. X-Of_Interest: Observing twenty years of service to the Unix community Cc: Garrett Cooper , Robert Huff , FreeBSD Mailing List Subject: Re: WOW! {Or Holy whatever} X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 10 May 2007 20:14:23 -0000 On Thu, May 10, 2007 at 05:23:17PM +0100, Tom Evans wrote: > On Thu, 2007-05-10 at 08:49 -0700, Garrett Cooper wrote: > > A good rule of thumb: Don't buy a video card with more RAM than 1/8 to > > 1/4 of the system RAM, because the RAM is shared with the system RAM, > > which means you have less overall system RAM to use for apps. > > > > -Garrett > > Er? Whilst I agree with the sentiment (low end graphics cards with 512MB > of RAM are solely there to rip off the unwary), that is complete tosh. > > Some cards dont have much/any onboard dedicated RAM; instead they use > system memory. Examples of these are nvidia cards labelled 'TC' (Turbo > Cache), most (all?) integrated intel video chipsets. > > The other issue is on i386. 32-bit systems have 4GB of address space to > use. Since you want to be able to address the graphics cards memory, > some of this address space is allocated so the OS can address the > memory. This means that if system RAM + video RAM > 4 GB, some of the > system RAM is unaddressable. That itself is a bit simplistic (its not 4 > GB, its ~3.5 GB, for various reasons.) > > The main point is that if you have a system with 1 GB of system RAM and > put in a graphics card with 640 MB of video RAM, you still have 1 GB of > system RAM to play with, even though you have gone over 1/4 of the > system RAM. > Urk! Can you hear the flip-flops spinning in my brain? Ok, once I have figuredout what is in Garrett's Dell I'll know if I even _want_ to spring for a new card. Assuming YES and assuming I look for an ASUS 6200: is it an AGP? 128M seems way overkill, but if the ASUS doesn't cheap-out and use system memory, I'd be happy. What say? gary > Tom -- Gary Kline kline@thought.org www.thought.org Public Service Unix