Is my 4890 installed correctly?

[Reven]

Hi

I recently installed a new ATI 4890 and I'm not sure if its working correctly. I just did a clean install of Vista 32bit and while I have a display up and running I have a few weird things going around that I'm not sure are normal.

The first strange thing is that Vista's system information is saying I have 4gb of RAM. While that is true, to my knowledge 32bit Vista can only support 4gb total. If so, is it recognizing my 4890's 1gb of VRAM?

When I go to display settings it says "generic PnP Monitor on ATI Radeon 4800 series". I am running Catalyst 9.7 and yet when I run Catalyst it says I'm running a 'built by ATI Radeon 4800 series". Strangely, I am running a Diamond 4890, not a generic ATI one.

If I go to the 'welcome' tab of the Catalyst, in the 'product features' it writes " Radeon 4870" and some driver links.

Even GPU-Z sees my card as a 4800 series, not a 4890.

Reasurringly, Catalyst is seeing the correct clock speeds on my card (its a Diamond XOC so its 925 core and 1050 memory).

Since I was unsure I went in and did the benchmark in the game World in Conflict. I played at max avaible settings except for a 'mere' 4x antristorpic filtering level at a 1280X1024 resolution. I had a high 30s average fps and disturbingly, a minimum fps of 10. Is this normal for a 4890? They seem a little on the weak side considering WoC is from 2006..

Considering I have a Q6600 as well I dont think the gpu was/is being bottlenecked.

So, is there a problem with my 4890 install?

 

[yh125d]

They changed memory reporting in vista 32, so that even if it can only address a limited amount of ram (3-3.5gb typically) it will show the full installed amount as 4gb, cause they got so many calls from people wondering why it only shows 3gb.


As far as catalyst reporting it ATI, that's normal. The only thing that makes it a Diamond is the packaging. At the core it's still an ATI card.

For GPU-z, that's also normal it is a 4800 series after all

For the low minimum FPS, that was probably an isolated glitch somewhere. Nothing sounds awry about the install

 

[imported_Asianman]

The low fps is a little odd, I have a GTX 275 that gets that range at 1680*1050 with AA at 8X, it could be an architechtural difference, but it does seem a little low. Windows doesn't recognize VRAM with the normal RAM, so thats normal, and all ATI cards are seen by their family, not the model (I only know about the 3800s and 4800s, not sure about others)

 

[Reven]

This is going to sound crazy, but here is something I noticed:

A friend of mine who is running Windows 7 RC also is running a 32bit install and has over 4 gigs of ram. His windows system tab says " 4 gigs avaible, 3.25 used" or something similar. Mine just says 4 gigs.

It seems I miss-post my screen resolution. I just upgraded my screen, guess I forgot that in my post. I was getting those framerates with a 1920x1200 screen, not a 1280x1024. I'm assuming those fps are then normal?

 

[cusideabelincoln]

Have you tested any other games?

Oh and I have 32-bit Vista with 4GB of RAM and noticed the same thing as you. It's normal. Vista must be able to report how much (up to 4gb?) of system RAM you have installed, but due to the 32-bit limitations and the fact other hardware (as well as the OS) reserves some memory addresses, you won't be able to use all 4GB of your RAM. With a 1GB card you'll likely only see about 2.7 GB if you open up the task manager.

 

[Reven]

Yeah, in my task manager it says about 3.3 gb avaible. I tested some other games, mainly Company of Heroes, and was able to run the game at max settings at my resolution. I suppose I was just surprised at the performance when the game was from 2006. Thanks for the help.