Video Card question

[Mayfriday0529]

What does it mean when a Video Card states the following.
Memory Size : 64MB On board(Supporting 256MB)

PCIe Video Card.

 

[Ika]

what kind of video card is it?

I'm guessing that the actual card has 64mb, but different manufacturers can add more memory to the card as they see fit, up to 256mb.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Newer video cards from ATI and nvidida support using main system memory as memory for the video card (technically so did AGP but they're pushing it more with PCIe). 64MB is physically on the board, but the card can dynamically reserve extra memory from the system so that the total available memory is 256MB.

nvidia calls it TurboCache. ATI calls it HyperMemory. Some card makers get into a little bit of trouble because they hide the actual specs on the box. They put 256MB in huge letters and in small letters on the back of the box they specify that there's 64MB on board and the rest of the 256MB comes from main memory.

 

[Mayfriday0529]

Originally posted by: guoziming
what kind of video card is it?

I'm guessing that the actual card has 64mb, but different manufacturers can add more memory to the card as they see fit, up to 256mb.

NVIDIA® GeForce? 6200, Turbo Cache

 

[Mayfriday0529]

Originally posted by: Lord Evermore
Newer video cards from ATI and nvidida support using main system memory as memory for the video card (technically so did AGP but they're pushing it more with PCIe). 64MB is physically on the board, but the card can dynamically reserve extra memory from the system so that the total available memory is 256MB.

nvidia calls it TurboCache. ATI calls it HyperMemory. Some card makers get into a little bit of trouble because they hide the actual specs on the box. They put 256MB in huge letters and in small letters on the back of the box they specify that there's 64MB on board and the rest of the 256MB comes from main memory.

Thats what I thought about the Memory usage. But there is no mention on the included manual about it or how to adjust it if possible.

 

[Lord Evermore]

You can't adjust it yourself. The video card dynamically allocates it based on what it and the drivers think it needs to handle whatever application you're running.

You basically select whatever settings you want in your game, like resolution and textures and all that, with the idea in mind that your card has 256MB of memory available, so you think you can use higher settings. In reality, the access to main memory is much slower than the local memory on the card, so if the card has to go out to get data stored in main memory, performance is lowered.

In addition, the Geforce 6200 is simply a very slow card to begin with, so you don't really want to be cranking up the options in a game to where you'd really need that much extra memory. What the TurboCache really does is simply allow you to run games like Battlefield2 or newer games where 128MB of memory is the bare minimum to even make the game run. It won't actually run well though because you've still got a slow GPU. The TurboCache option just allows casual gamers to still have basic functionality without having to buy a better video card.

 

[Mayfriday0529]

Originally posted by: Lord Evermore
You can't adjust it yourself. The video card dynamically allocates it based on what it and the drivers think it needs to handle whatever application you're running.

You basically select whatever settings you want in your game, like resolution and textures and all that, with the idea in mind that your card has 256MB of memory available, so you think you can use higher settings. In reality, the access to main memory is much slower than the local memory on the card, so if the card has to go out to get data stored in main memory, performance is lowered.

In addition, the Geforce 6200 is simply a very slow card to begin with, so you don't really want to be cranking up the options in a game to where you'd really need that much extra memory. What the TurboCache really does is simply allow you to run games like Battlefield2 or newer games where 128MB of memory is the bare minimum to even make the game run. It won't actually run well though because you've still got a slow GPU. The TurboCache option just allows casual gamers to still have basic functionality without having to buy a better video card.

Good info.
I don't really play video games just use the Video Card for basic stuff.
I was just concern about it because I'm having problems with my new LCD monitor running at a resolution of 1600 x 1050 i believe and its having Flicker problems and I thought maybe it could be do to the video card. The Video Card supports that resolution and it has been working fine for about week and half, until now having problems.

So I thought I check into this memory things or maybe I should consider getting another Video card...

 

[Lord Evermore]

The amount of memory would not have anything to do with video flicker. You only need 8MB of memory to run a 1600x1200 display with 32-bit color. You'll need to look into what might have failed in either the card or the LCD itself to cause the flicker, assuming no software or other hardware changes were made.

 

[Mayfriday0529]

Originally posted by: Lord Evermore
The amount of memory would not have anything to do with video flicker. You only need 8MB of memory to run a 1600x1200 display with 32-bit color. You'll need to look into what might have failed in either the card or the LCD itself to cause the flicker, assuming no software or other hardware changes were made.

Here is a video that I took of the flicker problem Video

Taking home a DVI cable to test with see if I get similar problems. Either way in the end if DVI works fine I still don't know if the problem is with the video card or the monitor. I would need to find another video card i guess to do the testing.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Man, that's awful. It looks like power is dying to the backlights intermittently. It could be a bad connector inside the monitor. I don't think it's likely to be an issue with the VGA port or the cable, since that should result in a complete loss of the video or a loss of an entire color, red, green or blue. If a DVI cable doesn't fix it, then I'd say there's a failure of the backlights.

 

[Mayfriday0529]

Originally posted by: Lord Evermore
Man, that's awful. It looks like power is dying to the backlights intermittently. It could be a bad connector inside the monitor. I don't think it's likely to be an issue with the VGA port or the cable, since that should result in a complete loss of the video or a loss of an entire color, red, green or blue. If a DVI cable doesn't fix it, then I'd say there's a failure of the backlights.

I'm trying to get the problem again so i can switch source. I have my xbox 360 connected to component input on the monitor and have not seen an issue ever.

 

[Mayfriday0529]

I tested the monitor with a DVI cable. My Video Card has both VGA and DVI output. The DVI cable was worse the image kept cutting off and on made it impossible for me to turn it off. I had tested that cable and output before and worked find again in the beggining. So Now i'm wondering if its the monitor or the video card?

I went ahead and connected my Laptop to the monitor using its VGA out port which can go to the 1680 x 1050 resolution also and so far no problems...
I'm going to try to reseat the video card maybe its loose on the motherboard. If that doesnt work I guess my last option is to buy a new Video Card and see if that has the problem or not.
what do you think.

 

[Mayfriday0529]

The problem was the Video Card. Bought a new one and problem is gone. Now I'm going to RMA the other one.