Shared Video RAM under Vista - 8800GTS

[Vode]

Rightio, I noticed an anomaly with my system's Performance Information as reported by the Windows Experience Index part, being it showed my graphics card with an insane and odd ammount of onboard RAM, looking at the card properties it shows some of this as shared... Any ideas on why this is or how to turn it off? I'm assuming it will (try) to fill up the card memory first - but that could make quite a performance hit, bit of a difference between the card's onboard RAM and the system RAM/swap wherever it wants to substitute... And also, if it is detracting from/reserving out of system memory then that could also detriment performance, this is a feature of Vista I haven't heard of before.
Screenshot attached to help show what I'm on about

http://s92.photobucket.com/albums/l24/VodeAndreas/?action=view&current=sharedvram.jpg

I'm running Vista Business 32-bit

 

[NoxTek]

This is how the shared memory access system in Vista works. At present there is no known way to turn it off nor should you want to. Vista, DX10, and the nVidia drivers are written to utilize this feature in an optimal manner and it will NOT lead to 'decreased performance'. Whenever you run a game or application the 'shared' memory will be dynamically freed up as needed for system use. The only time this shared system memory could possibly be used is if you run a game or application that requests texture storage or framebuffer storage that adds up to more than the 640MB on your card, and that just won't happen unless you're running at some insane resolution.

 

[AntiSocialMunky]

Eh... That's interesting, I didn't realize that DX10/VISTA had the built in ability to share ram with the system. I have a GTS 320mb, should I be worried about slow downs due to texture related stuff?

 

[NoxTek]

Eh... That's interesting, I didn't realize that DX10/VISTA had the built in ability to share ram with the system. I have a GTS 320mb, should I be worried about slow downs due to texture related stuff?

Only if you are running your games with a higher resolution/aa-level than your card's amount of memory can support, in which case it should STILL run better than in XP since Vista will allow system ram to be used as texture memory.

 

[Vode]

Thanks for the reply, while I don't really like it I can see how this would be a boon for some lower end cards...

 

[Blacklash]

So what happens when your video card doesn't properly evict textures from it memory and keeps filling up?

Moving through heavy grass areas in the game "Oblivion" is much smoother for me under XP than under Vista x64 by comparison. So much so that I no longer play that game under Vista x64.

It reminds somewhat of the wicked chop my 7950 GX2 would display in "Tomb Raider:Legend".

 

[Betrayer00GT]

So what happens when your video card doesn't properly evict textures from it memory and keeps filling up?

Moving through heavy grass areas in the game "Oblivion" is much smoother for me under XP than under Vista x64 by comparison. So much so that I no longer play that game under Vista x64.

You realize those two statements are not related, right?

Vista is slower at gaming, in general. Each newer OS has been. There is more the OS is doing, so less available to the games with each successive release of Windows. No one should be shocked by this at this point in our collective windows experience. Remember 95/98 -> 2000? What about 2000 -> XP? Now XP -> Vista is doing the same thing. We will be having this same discussion in ~3 years if MS is on time with "Windows 7".

Also, this shared memory is not new. It has always been around. Remember the "AGP Aperture Size" in AGP-based motherboard BIOS? Shared memory is being developed over time, it is not new, and it is done in XP. XP may not be as involved with or aware of it as is Vista, but that might or might not be a good or bad thing. None of us know how it works (or doesn't as the case may be) enough to be able to say anything definitive.