Video memory for Compaq

[Joe_Carr1]

I currently have a Compaq Presario S3100NX desktop PC and I was wondering that if I add more ram will the video card go upto 64mb or more? The video card this machine has is a S3 ProSavage DDR and has 32mb now. I know this machine can go upto 1 gig of system ram but right now I have whatever came with the system which is 256mb.


Also will it make a huge difference from 256mb to 1 gig of system ram?



Here are some specs


AMD Athlon XP 2200+ / 1.8 GHz

256mb DDR266 PC2100 and can go upto 1 gig

80 gig hard drive

S3 ProSavage DDR AGP 4X 32mb

Windows XP Home

 

[abowlofrice]

you can't add more memory to the video card, whatever it comes with is what you get. Adding more ram to your system will definitely improve performance. Minimum memory requirement for XP is 256, but that is way too small to do anything these days. upgrade to at least 512 or 1gig. I must warn you that PC2100 ram is quite expensive these days despite their old age.

 

[Joe_Carr1]

Well I once had a system that had only 128mb ram installed and it had Windows XP Home on it and it worked fine. Also I thought that onboard video cards will share more video ram if the system has more ram that's why I was wondering if it will go upto 64mb if I add more ram like 512mb or 1 gig. The S3ProSavage DDR video card is an onboard card so it shares ram from system.

 

[Legodude522]

Well I once had a system that had only 128mb ram installed and it had Windows XP Home on it and it worked fine. Also I thought that onboard video cards will share more video ram if the system has more ram that's why I was wondering if it will go upto 64mb if I add more ram like 512mb or 1 gig. The S3ProSavage DDR video card is an onboard card so it shares ram from system.

For onboard graphics, it's totally up to your BIOS. Sometimes you can adjust how much memory it can use. Go into your BIOS settings screen when you boot your computer.

 

[Joe_Carr1]

About buying ram I can get a 512mb OEM for $24 each stick with $1 shipping on each ram. So for 2 of them to make upto 1 gig it will cost around $50.

 

[Joe_Carr1]

Ok I did look at the bios and I found that I can set it to 8mb, 16mb, 32mb, 32mb auto.


Now I don't know what 32mb auto means but does it mean that it will automaticly adjust the amount of ram to use according to how much system ram I have? In that case will it go upto 64mb if I add more system ram? Or is 32mb the highest it can go?

 

[Atomic Rooster]

The most memory you can allocate to the video is 32MB regardless of how much system memory you have installed. Going from 256MB to 1GB of memory will make a difference in how fast apps open and operate.