question about gma 500 on netbook

C

cannondale06

[H]F Junkie
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Nov 27, 2007
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my father just gave me his netbook since he never uses it. gpu-z only shows 8mb of system ram being used for video on the gma 500 so how can I have more? does it automatically use more than 8mb if needed or is there some setting I need to adjust? I did not see anything in the bios for adjusting ram usage for video like I typically see with integrated.
 
It gets dynamically adjusted. If you go into the Intel control panel it will show you the minimum and maximum it uses (8MB/256MB).

Honestly, just write off any 3D graphics performance for that netbook. The GMA 500 is a renamed PowerVR SGX 535 and it's significantly slower than the GMA 950 used in the initial Atom netbooks. One tradeoff though is that GMA 500 has better video decoding features.
 
yeah I know its weak but I just wanted to know if there was anything I needed to adjust. it does play Plants vs Zombies just fine. lol
 
Probably in full screen, too. :jealous:

ATI drivers have problems with that advanced game. It stops rendering every once in a while in full screen mode.
 
Not sure how old or what the other specs on that netbook are (and sorry for the site whoring), but I wrote up an article a little while ago covering four different games on my Dell Mini 9 and how well they performed, as well as some tips regarding operating system and memory management while gaming on a netbook. Give it a look, if you're interested.

There's also this very definition of an epic thread on mydellmini.com.
 
pxc said:
Probably in full screen, too. :jealous:

ATI drivers have problems with that advanced game. It stops rendering every once in a while in full screen mode.
Click to expand...

I have never had any problems with PvZ on my systems, neither the 4870X2s or the 4830. The only caveat is I have to disable crossfire to play it. No big deal, as the catalyst AI method works fine.
 
samuelmorris said:
I have never had any problems with PvZ on my systems
Click to expand...
There's a thread in the ATI subforum where others have similar "stopped rendering" problems with recent drivers. Some blame it on IE9 (which I don't have). It's just annoying.
 
Ah well I've not played PvZ on recent drivers tbf, I got bored of it a while back.
 
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