I recently bought Battlefield 2. It requires 128Mb of video memory. My AGP card only has 64Mb. I read about sharing RAM with your video card. It told me to check my bios for the option. I checked it and the highest setting I could choose was 8Mb. Is there any other way to make this option higher or share RAM/HDD space with my video card.
Thanks,
Brandon
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Battlefield 2 on a 64MB card??? Look into buying another card. If your system only allows 8MB of shared memory then your system is as old as that card is.
Also, you cannot share video RAM on your hard drive, that's only swap space for your regular memory.
Sorry to say but you're trying to accomplish the impossible.
Shared memory only applies to uilt-in Video Cards or Some new Low-end cards that support special technology ( HyperMemory for ATi GPU's and TurboCache for nVIDIA's ones )
Your card as well as all mid-range and high-end and some of low-end cards does not support sharing memory with system RAM...
both HyperMemory & TurboCache designed to reduce the overall cost but you will loss performance as system RAM is much slower than VGA RAM
basically as what some users commented before, You will need to buy another card, but as you don't have more money to have a one, you may want to save if you want to play, or try to play it some where else ( gaming stores, some friends, etc... )
And even if you can use RAM to increase the video memory, I doubt BF2 would run on it. And if it even run, I doubt you could play it. Will take like 30 seconds from the time you move the mouse to the time the gun actually moves. Not to mention the loading time. Took me 2 minutes on a 256MB video card for the first time it rendered.
Better ask for a refund (for the point here), and next time read the game requirement before buying it.
RAM sharing between the motherboard and an on-board video adapter is a MAJOR compromise used by system builders to save money at the expense of performance. Basically they design the motherboard so that a portion of the system RAM can be accessed by the video controller. There are two main problems from a performance viewpoint:
1) This reduces the amount of RAM available to the operating system.
2) The CPU cannot access the RAM while the video controller is accessing it. So it must wait, and wait, and wait.... (You get the idea!)
So while this scheme saves money by reducing complexity and removing parts from the system, the performance compromise is very significant. Age of the system has little to do with this since systems having this "feature" have been around for some time and are not likely to go away anytime soon, if ever.
The shared-RAM type system is NOT at all suited for any application that makes heavy use of graphics. Certainly gaming as well as any sort of graphics design package (PhotoShop, AutoCAD, etc.) would perform poorly on such a system.
The best solution is to NOT purchase such a system if you are intending to run such applications. If you already have such a system, many can be upgraded to use a PCI-bus or AGP-bus video card which will provide much greater performance than the stock on-board video system.
I suggest that you save your money and plan on getting a nice 256MB or better video graphics card when you can.
This is certainly one that is unanimous. The descriptions of how slow sharing RAM with the video card are wouldn't even begin to describe how slowly you would run if it were possible to share HDD space with the card. Your HDD LED would not turn off the entire time and *maybe* an hour after you clicked to load the game, you would be loaded enough to slowly maneuver your mouse to click on something. AGP video cards have become relatively inexpensive with the release of the new PCI express video cards. I would suggest going to an online computer parts store such as www.tigerdirect.com and looking in the bargain section of the video cards to possibly give yourself an idea of how much money you need to save up to buy a new card. You may be surprised at what you can find for a reasonable price. Good luck.
Except with tigerdirect's reputation I would avoid them with reckless abandon and go shopping here:
www.pricewatch.com or www.newegg.com
I find that it is much easier for those who are not experts with computers to use tigerdirect. They are good about including drivers and documentation for their products. Also, their prices are fairly competetive and their site is much easier to use than some which saves time. Time is money. Still, if you're confident in your ability to install what you need without any outside help and are looking to save a few bucks, by all means shop around. It was simply an example. I would never rule them out entirely, though, as I have found many better deals on tigerdirect for certain items at certain times.
Yeah, they so good they inspired a hate site: http://tigerdirectsucks.or
http://tigerdirectsucks.or
{ There are others. }
Tigerdirect has a repution of selling faulty products, misrepresented products, the wrong product, of overbilling, not shipping, not making good on rebates, and of not honoring their warranty. If the concern is time or money it's not the place to go.
If you don't know what you're doing it's even less the place to go because you won't know you've been had until it's too late.
That's my opinion. It's consistent with reviews of the store.
I have enough grounds to not change it.
Further discussion is off the subject now.
Enough............
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by: bmlbytesPosted on 2006-07-23 at 19:57:59ID: 17165115
Also if there is a way to share memory between 2 cards that would help too