You all probably know this anyways, but under 32 bit Windows, you can "tune" your memory to in some small way help out the limitations Richard describes:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...=vs.85%29.aspx

@Richard - doesnt the GPU address the video card memory directly when called from the likes of a game? i.e. while the 1gb video card in your example isnt adding anything because the system already has maxed physical memory; in a 3D game for example, this 1gb VRAM can be utilised above the 4gb system ram as the GPU iterates through its own instructions from the application code. - i.e. nothing to do with Windows or the CPU. (I think thats the big push that nVidia marketed when they released their first GPU's back 12 years ago or so)?
And if memory serves me even better, then the latest round of Adobe products (eg, Photoshop) are also GPU capable and can therefore make use of the additional VRAM?

AFAIK the video memory is available in full, it's just subtracted from the total 'pool' dictated by the limitations of 32bit OS's and comes out of the RAM - at least thats how I understand it.

You could be correct mate, but when I was writing computer games, the tech support guys at nVidia were always pushing the split between CPU and their GPU and the resources that each can poll independantly.

It makes sense for it to operate as you describe; with the limit in place, but that doesnt seem to fit with what we were doing back then.

Interesting - I'll have to dig around and see what I can find on that one just for my own curiosity.
Cheers :)

I'm not 100% on it either having not had any programming experience, there might be all sorts of stuff put into directx to get round limitations like this now but since we're pretty much all on 64bit it's not really an issue these days :)

my 32bit computer would disagree with you on that one...

...except its too busy trying to grind through opening Firefox to realise you have said anything yet :)

:lol:

I'll raise you a customers laptop with 1Gb of RAM and Vista Business 32bit, chug chug ch......u.......g.
The hard drive is working so hard just sitting in windows it looks like it's got two power LED's :woot:

lol. *shudders at Vista*

You didnt ask it to DO anything did you?
Thats like torture or something for that poor thing - Im sure there is a bit in the Geneva convention against that kind of cruelty to OS's :p

I'll just have my usual pop at Windows - I hate it, I never want to have to buy it again, and I can't wait for the day my laptop pushes me to install Linux on it as well.

Without the need for games, I see no reason to fork out for Win 7 - Ubuntu or OpenSuse is just a download away.

This is the best reason for me:
http://media.bestofmicro.com/1/G/325...rapee21110.png

As for the graphics card - the TDP of the nVidia 260 card horrified me at 182W!! I thought it might be a candidate to replace my 8800 GS, but I'll pass on that. I never saw the need to overclock my Q6600 (I got the one that does it well) - the extra cores mean performance is very consistent. I will say that editing HD video is the first time I've even had cause to want moar powah!

The modern integrated graphics cards do HD pretty well, and use a tiny fraction of that wattage. As that would necessitate gutting his PC, how about a nice, latest generation, low spec ATI card? They're noted for their video performance and are parsimonious on the power. The PSU issue goes away too.

Typical Linux user, arrives late to the party as he had to spend so long compiling his latest kernel...

:p

I run Linux on my Laptop, it does the job well, but thats because all I ever do on my laptop is code websites...

Its awesome if you dont want to game, if you do, forget it...

No kernels were compiled in the making of this post! With the repositories as they are now (in my case OpenSuse), there's no need to compile anything for ordinary use. Indeed, I think Linux has better driver support than Win 7 these days, certainly for older devices.

No arguments there - I do game on Linux, but not that much - some games have ports or work through Wine. Many don't work at all. Problems usually arise with copy protection. I've discovered ripping an ISO of the game disk and mounting it as a drive letter for Wine solves a lot of issues, esp. with multi-disk volumes.

Now for HD video - there are a host of good players- Kaffeine, VLC etc., and quite a few decent video editors (I've settled on OpenShot). I've long since settled on apps for most other desktop uses.

Getting back to the graphics card issue, a high-power graphics card is a total waste (mostly excess idle power consumption) if it's not used to game. From the OP, it sound like he's after the same sort of cards that HTPC users go for - principle features would be HD video hardware acceleration, multiple outputs and silent running.