2GB GPU with 4GB Ram Windows 7 32bit

sand_man

sand_man

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Morning fellows

Bit of a quandary here and need some advice.

I need to replace a GPU on a rig that is confined to running 32-bit Windows 7 and by virtue is limited to 4gb of ram.

Due to these bandwidth limitations common sense would dictate that I use a 1gb gpu leaving 3gb of usable ram.

My question is if I install a 2gb gpu will the usable ram diminish to 2gb?
 
I thought a physical graphics card had its own RAM and does not use the one on the PC? If I am correct, the GPU will not touch your RAM on your PC, so you can have a 10GB GPU but the RAM on the PC will stay at 4GB (3GB of which is usable).
 
sand_man said:
Morning fellows

Bit of a quandary here and need some advice.

I need to replace a GPU on a rig that is confined to running 32-bit Windows 7 and by virtue is limited to 4gb of ram.

Due to these bandwidth limitations common sense would dictate that I use a 1gb gpu leaving 3gb of usable ram.

My question is if I install a 2gb gpu will the usable ram diminish to 2gb?
Click to expand...

Just lol

Integrated graphics shares RAM,cards have their own RAM that doesn't affect the useable RAM amount
 
Surely the GPU uses memory address space thus reducing the amount of usable ram? Maybe not quite 1 for 1 as in my example above but some?

OT/ With a dual monitor setup would one benefit having a 2gb vs 1gb card?
 
Ah i see what you mean,that's actually a contentious topic,depends if you have PAE drivers/OS installed,common assumption is that windows does reserve 256ish meg and upwards for the graphics RAM mapping. Now since 2D display uses barely a drop of memory that makes sense. When gaming however i'd imagine that 3gig/1gig thing to be current since 3d rendering uses GPU memory much more than 2d applications
 
@OP You'll probably have less usable memory available after installing the 2GB card. Why not upgrade to 64 bit?

sand_man said:
Surely the GPU uses memory address space thus reducing the amount of usable ram? Maybe not quite 1 for 1 as in my example above but some?

OT/ With a dual monitor setup would one benefit having a 2gb vs 1gb card?
Click to expand...

Generally the more RAM your GPU has the higher resolutions it can handle, so you'll only benefit if you stretch the image over both displays. This is assuming that the 1GB and 2GB cards are identical except for the amount of RAM.
 
The quickest way to check is to get a card, install it, then check the usable ram. (Located when you 'My Computer'>'Right Click'>'Properties'
 
grim said:
@OP You'll probably have less usable memory available after installing the 2GB card. Why not upgrade to 64 bit?
Click to expand...
The pc, among other things, is used for surveillance. The DVR card and accompanying software is not compatible with 64 bit OS.



Generally the more RAM your GPU has the higher resolutions it can handle, so you'll only benefit if you stretch the image over both displays. This is assuming that the 1GB and 2GB cards are identical except for the amount of RAM.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I basically keep the surveillance cameras open on one monitor and use the other monitor to work on.
 
sand_man said:
The pc, among other things, is used for surveillance. The DVR card and accompanying software is not compatible with 64 bit OS.





Yeah, I basically keep the surveillance cameras open on one monitor and use the other monitor to work on.
Click to expand...

How about running the surveillance stuff in a virtual machine? Might run into some compatibility issues, but I reckon the possibility of it opening up some headroom on your system may make it worth giving it a shot.
 
Messugga said:
How about running the surveillance stuff in a virtual machine? Might run into some compatibility issues, but I reckon the possibility of it opening up some headroom on your system may make it worth giving it a shot.
Click to expand...

Never considered that. Not at all familiar with the dynamics of virtual machines, add to that the volatile and temperamental nature of the surveillance software we using and I'm not sure I want to go down that road...
 
Messugga said:
How about running the surveillance stuff in a virtual machine? Might run into some compatibility issues, but I reckon the possibility of it opening up some headroom on your system may make it worth giving it a shot.
Click to expand...

He's going to have issues getting the DVR card to the VM.

Hyper-V doesn't support PCI passthrough, ESXi only supports some hardware and leaves the host machine unusable as a desktop.
 
sand_man said:
Mmmm quite intrigued by that, your disclaimer scares me a bit though...
Click to expand...

I've read some of the technical details about the hack and it should work, I'm wary of modifying the kernel though.

Maybe try it on another machine that you can easily trash and reload if need be?
 
sand_man said:
I need to replace a GPU on a rig that is confined to running 32-bit Windows 7 and by virtue is limited to 4gb of ram.

My question is if I install a 2gb gpu will the usable ram diminish to 2gb?
Click to expand...

To your question, no. 32-bit Windows usually reserves about 750MB of graphics RAM when you're using a card with 256MB or more memory. I'm not quite read up on why it does this, but this is a result of Windows keeping some of the memory reserved for hardware addresses, I/O and a few other things when you have discrete graphics and more than 2GB of memory. 64-bit Windows does the same thing (my one also reserves 769MB for hardware) but being on 64-bit I'm not limited by the amount of memory I can install and use.

sand_man said:
OT/ With a dual monitor setup would one benefit having a 2gb vs 1gb card?
Click to expand...

For gaming purposes, yes. For work? No, even GPUs with 256MB memory are good enough for multi-monitor use. I would also recommend looking at better survelliance software or even dedicate a box to it
 
I've decided I like the idea of surplus firepower so am shopping for a 2gb card. Been checking in at Carbonite hoping to find something used in the R1500-R2000 price range.

My current card is a 4890 so looking for something significantly better. GTX660ti or 7850..

Wootware have got one of these in stock which looks appealing... I'm prepared to drop R2.5k on a new card vs used...

Thoughts....?

EDIT: Perhaps this... Heavy on the juice though....
 
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