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i815 Chipset Video>>> Only 24bit?

M

mamisano

Platinum Member
Hey guys, just set up a new Dell computer here at work with Win XP. It is a 1Ghz PIII with an i185 chipset and 256MB Ram. Problem is that WinXP only reports 4MB ram and only displays at 16 or 24bit color. Is there any way for me to increase the available memory to the on-board video?

Regards,
 
The amount of RAM assigned exclusively for video use may be variable in the BIOS, although 4MB sounds fairly normal.

Even normal graphics cards with 32/64MB use a 1 or 2 MB's when normally using Windows, and the rest is for 3D textures and buffering, hence a small amount of RAM must be reserved for the graphics adapter.

The i810 and i815 make use of system RAM for 3D games/programs.
 
Unfortunately I own a i810 based rig and it can show a maximum of 24-bits colour.
The chipset uses part of the system memory as video memory and as far as I know it's 4Mb by default or something.
Well, getting into deep water here but the i815 has the same video as the i810 so at leat the 24bit limit applies.
 
Another problem is that both 32-bit colour and 24-bit colour are deemed 'True Colour' by most of windows' graphics drivers, so the question of whether you need more or not is a bit subjective.

Remember, the i81x series is a budget chipset anyway so I doubt extreme colour depth was high on Intel's priorities.
 
Not 100% sure but I think the difference between 24 and 32 bit is that the extra 8-bits are used for transparency or something.
The i815 chipset is OK. It's got AGP port support so throw in a AGP-card and off you go. The i810 is.... hm ... how to put this nicely.... has amazingly no support for an AGP-port. The onboard graphics are .... hmm .... usable for Office applications.
 
The extra 8bit are there for the alpha channel(transparency), and to pad the bits to 32. Its a lot easier for a computer to deal with 32-bit code than 24-bit. Internally the 24-bit for the 810 is still probably 32-bit, without the alpha channel. Not that that alpha channel is ever used in windows or anything.
 
Yeah, I wanted to throw on XP-Plus for Windows XP and it told me my graphics adapter did not have enough RAM. I upgraded Dell Bios from A02 to A07, but there is no option to increase the ammount of System Memory used by the graphics adapter. I also don't feel like spending $$$ on an add-on adapter because it is just a work PC.

Oh well, thanks guys 🙂

 
mamisano:

My girlfriend has WIN XP and an 810e chipset. The onboard 4mb graphics are complete crap, but I did manage to get most of the screensavers from the Plus Pack to work. Just manually install each screensaver from the disk. The fish screensaver only works at 640x480x16 🙁 ... but at least it works.

I haven't tried the games yet, but the rest of the backgrounds, themes and everything installed fine by just forcing Plus to install everything, or manually doing it myself.
 
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