Need help just might have made a mistake

A

apcor

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 24, 2005
Messages
455
I ordered a 2GB HD 6950 off the egg yesterday and just stumbled across something I was completely unaware of. I am still on XP and according to this http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=91260 the 2 GB of Vram is going use up all my address space leaving me with no system memory for a game. Can someone give some insight on wether or not I will be able to game with card on XP given my current rig. I am in a tight spot right now for cash and upgrading to win7 would probably set me back another $100 plus I would need to buy some more ram which with all factored in (card, win7, and ram) goes beyond my budget. Would appreciate any insight. Thanks
 
I didn't look at that artical , bu tit is true that winXP can only address up to 4 gig ram. I am not sure if the OS will assign all Vram first, and give the left over to the system, or how that proportioning works. but you only get 4 gig total.

This is because it uses 32bits for its memory allocation. There was a version of xp that was 64 bits (allowing you to go above 4 gig). It was rare, and there where driver issues ect, you don't want it.

So, I highly recommend you upgrade to wins7. Not only will you have more ram availble, but also , windows XP is stuck at DX9.0c (as far as I know.) Wins 7 (and your new card) will be running DX11. This new card will run game really well, and they will look far better then on XP, because you have limits right now both because you can't use enough ram, and because your OS will not support the newer (ie newer then 2008) DX sets.

I do however wonder why you mention that you need new ram for win7? Can you please explain your reasoning for this?
 
I think the OS will factor in the vram first. I had a 512 mb card before with winxp and 4gb system ram. I was only seeing 3.5gigs
 
Dosobye said:
I think the OS will factor in the vram first. I had a 512 mb card before with winxp and 4gb system ram. I was only seeing 3.5gigs
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It will work with what it has in any game/program that will use it.
 
Okay lots of confusion going on here.

Windows XP (32bit) can only address 4GB of ram with system RAM being addressed last as generally its the most abundant and cutting it off generally would not be an issue.

For you to see a drop in available memory you would need to be hitting this 4GB. If that is the case you would still have 2GB of system memory available. This should run almost any game perfectly well, the most I generally see a game run at is about 1.2GB.

Why you would need more memory if you upgraded to Windows 7 or even Vista is beyond me. You would have to have 2GB+ (more likely 4 if your worried about losing system memory installing this card) all of which is more then enough memory to run Windows 7 and games perfectly fine.

....Just looked at your sig. 2GB of Ram. Why do we have this thread? A single 6950 is not going to affect your system memory available to windows more then a couple MB.
 
Another recommendation to upgrade to Windows 7. You'll see many more benefits for your $100 than you think.
 
Jesus just install windows 7 on another partition. WTF your doing on Xp with decent hardware?
 
I had, a 1GB 4850, and thought I would try windows XP for laughs. With Vista 64, and Win 7 out of 4gigs of ram I had 3.5gb availible. With XP 32 bit I had 2.5gigs availible. You will be very low on ram, but it will work if you can survive until you get win 7/Vista 64.
 
Untitledone said:
I had, a 1GB 4850, and thought I would try windows XP for laughs. With Vista 64, and Win 7 out of 4gigs of ram I had 3.5gb availible. With XP 32 bit I had 2.5gigs availible. You will be very low on ram, but it will work if you can survive until you get win 7/Vista 64.
Click to expand...

Maybe I am missing something and I didn't notice it with his first post but his sig says 2GB. There should only be minimal affects on his available system memory.
 
Topweasel said:
Maybe I am missing something and I didn't notice it with his first post but his sig says 2GB. There should only be minimal affects on his available system memory.
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I was just stating my own experience, he may have to try it and see. I had a 1gb vram card with 4gb of system ram(installed), and 512mb hardware reserved in 64bit this has me at 3.5gb availible ram (would be 4gb without the hardware reserve). On XP my ram in the system specs went to 2.5gb (lost the 1gb of addresses to the video card) with the 1gb video card, and 512mb hardware reserved. If I am thinking correctly I would have 1.5gb of addressed ram with my setup if I had a 2gb card.

So he probably will have 2gb ram addressed with the 2gb card, but that is not including anything else he may have installed that might steal addresses.
 
apcor said:
I ordered a 2GB HD 6950 off the egg yesterday and just stumbled across something I was completely unaware of. I am still on XP and according to this http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=91260 the 2 GB of Vram is going use up all my address space leaving me with no system memory for a game. Can someone give some insight on wether or not I will be able to game with card on XP given my current rig. I am in a tight spot right now for cash and upgrading to win7 would probably set me back another $100 plus I would need to buy some more ram which with all factored in (card, win7, and ram) goes beyond my budget. Would appreciate any insight. Thanks
Click to expand...

The reason you are freaking out is because you didn't read the entire thread you linked, and the OP of that thread is a lazy bastard who never updated his post.

1. The maximum size reserved for a video card (regardless of local vram size) is a 256MB PCIe window. This sliding window is used to access sections of the whole 2GB ram (at a small performance cost).

This means that you will lose just 256MB of MEMORY_MAPPED I/O SPACE (this will be above your 2GB ram), and 256MB of your actual ram (only for games that create a copy in main memory - see point #2).

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1866685&postcount=148
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1961808&postcount=167

2. Modern game designers have avoided placing a copy of the video ram in main memory. For games that do not require a main memory copy, you will not lose any of your 2GB of ram. For games that do, you will lose 256MB.

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1695556&postcount=116
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1696637&postcount=118

IN SUMMARY: YOU HAVE NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT - YOUR EXISTING GTX 280 USES THE SAME AMOUNT OF I/O SPACE, AND MAKES THE SAME SIZED COPY IN MAIN MEMORY FOR GAMES THAT REQUIRE IT (256MB window)
 
Thanks for the input guys. I did panic though as I went most of the day without any responses and I called and voided the order as it had not shipped yet. I did order the 1GB version in its place. Much thanks defaultluser for getting to the bottom of that. I think I will be fine though with the 1 GB model till I finish school. I am sure I'll hit win7 then too. For all those saying get win7 remember its not just the cost of win7, but 4 more gigs of ram (which I dont buy cheap quality and from what I have read 6 gigs is the sweet spot for win 7 gaming) + win7+ this GPU which in and of itself is stretching my budget.
 
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apcor said:
Thanks for the input guys. I did panic though as I went most of the day without any responses and I called and voided the order as it had not shipped yet. I did order the 1GB version in its place. Much thanks defaultluser for getting to the bottom of that. I think I will be fine though with the 1 GB model till I finish school. I am sure I'll hit win7 then too. For all those saying get win7 remember its not just the cost of win7, but 4 more gigs of ram (which I dont buy cheap quality) + win7+ this GPU which in and of itself is stretching my budget.
Click to expand...

as a student you can get Win 7 for ~$50-60, not the $110 for an OEM, also win 7 will run fine with 2 gigs of ram.
 
OK How do I go about getting it. Also does that include 64 bit version? I don't think I would want to game on win7 with just 2 gigs but if I can get win7 for 50-60bucks I might send word to the family and put in a request for some ram for my birthday next month.
 
apcor said:
OK How do I go about getting it. Also does that include 64 bit version? I don't think I would want to game on win7 with just 2 gigs but if I can get win7 for 50-60bucks I might send word to the family and put in a request for some ram for my birthday next month.
Click to expand...

You might want to get more memory eventually but 2GB is manageable.
 
I'm running Vista 64 Home Premium on my laptop with 1 gig of ram, and it runs better doing most things than when it had XP Professional. I run Win 7 Professional on my desktop with 4 gigs of ram, and for light gaming, and most other things I have more than enough ram.
 
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