Powerful GPU on 32bit OS for older games

[Gurd99]

Most powerful video cards now have 2GB video memory as a starting point. My PC is 4GB RAM/3.25GB on 32bit OS plus 1GB ram gone to windows & most my games from mid 2000's use anywhere from 600MB to up to 2GB RAM.

Does this mean I couldn't get a 2GB or 4GB card like the gtx980? As I wouldn't have enough ram & the game would run bad?

Looking to play crysis, fear games at 1600p if possible. If they ran, would the frame rate be hit hard from the ram limit?

thanks

[Krispy Kritter]

System RAM and video RAM are seperate. The amount of GPU RAM used will vary based on the game, and most older games don't need as much as newer games.

[Gurd99]

System RAM and video RAM are seperate. The amount of GPU RAM used will vary based on the game, and most older games don't need as much as newer games.

So I will be fine getting something like a gtx980? I thought that if the card was 2GB you needed at least 2gb free sys ram set aside just for the gpu?

[usually_quiet]

System RAM and video RAM are seperate. The amount of GPU RAM used will vary based on the game, and most older games don't need as much as newer games.

So I will be fine getting something like a gtx980? I thought that if the card was 2GB you needed at least 2gb free sys ram set aside just for the gpu?

When you add a video card 32-bit Windows allocates some of its 4GB address space for drivers and other resources used by the card, so the amount of RAM for running applications is reduced, but you won't loose 2GB. For example, I saw a post where someone said the available system memory detected by Windows was reduced by 300MB after installing a video card.

However, a graphics card with a large amount of memory may still be a problem even if the GPU memory doesn't count against the 4GB address space available for a 32-bit OS.

from https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/940105

On a modern operating system such as Windows Vista, applications run within their own private virtual address space. Typically, the size of the virtual address space is fixed at 2 gigabytes (GB) for 32-bit applications. How much virtual address space is available is not related to how much physical memory there is on the computer.

If an application creates its own in-memory copy of its video resources, or the application uses DirectX 9 or an earlier version, the virtual address space contains the WDDM video memory manager's virtualized range and the application's copy. Applications that use graphics APIs that are earlier than DirectX 10 and that target GPUs that have large amounts of video memory can easily exhaust their virtual address space.

Some games released in the mid 2000's may not have the ability to use DirectX 10.

[Gurd99]

System RAM and video RAM are seperate. The amount of GPU RAM used will vary based on the game, and most older games don't need as much as newer games.

So I will be fine getting something like a gtx980? I thought that if the card was 2GB you needed at least 2gb free sys ram set aside just for the gpu?

When you add a video card 32-bit Windows allocates some of its 4GB address space for drivers and other resources used by the card, so the amount of RAM for running applications is reduced, but you won't loose 2GB. For example, I saw a post where someone said the available system memory detected by Windows was reduced by 300MB after installing a video card.

However, a graphics card with a large amount of memory may still be a problem even if the GPU memory doesn't count against the 4GB address space available for a 32-bit OS.

from https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/940105

On a modern operating system such as Windows Vista, applications run within their own private virtual address space. Typically, the size of the virtual address space is fixed at 2 gigabytes (GB) for 32-bit applications. How much virtual address space is available is not related to how much physical memory there is on the computer.

If an application creates its own in-memory copy of its video resources, or the application uses DirectX 9 or an earlier version, the virtual address space contains the WDDM video memory manager's virtualized range and the application's copy. Applications that use graphics APIs that are earlier than DirectX 10 and that target GPUs that have large amounts of video memory can easily exhaust their virtual address space.

Some games released in the mid 2000's may not have the ability to use DirectX 10.

Thanks. The only thing it seems to do now is OC my i7 to something like 3.8ghz from what Ive read.

[aedipuss]

address space is different than available ram. in a 32bit os you start with 4 GB of address space and only 2GB available per application. a 2GB video card would take up 2GB of address space leaving 2GB for all applications. under directX 9.0c and below the video ram must also be duplicated into available program address space so there would be 0 address space for a game. under dx10 and above that doesn't happen.

[usually_quiet]

address space is different than available ram. in a 32bit os you start with 4 GB of address space and only 2GB available per application. a 2GB video card would take up 2GB of address space leaving 2GB for all applications.

Not exactly. There is a real world example in this article: http://blogs.technet.com/b/markrussinovich/archive/2008/07/21/3092070.aspx

The author of the article had 2 video cards (each with 1GB of memory) installed in his system running Vista 32-bit, but lost only 512 MB of his address space, not the whole 2GB. If he had just one video card installed in his system with 2GB of memory, he would probably have lost less than that.

However the scenario below could still happen if a DirectX 9 game tries to use all 2GB of the video card's memory.

Under directX 9.0c and below the video ram must also be duplicated into available program address space so there would be 0 address space for a game.

[aedipuss]

available ram does not equal address space. available ram is a hardware issue. address space is a software issue. video ram can't be accessed by a program unless it is first copied into system ram and it isn't copied into system ram until a program requests it. different programs call different amounts, and in your example 512MB may be the minimum that "system" calls at boot.

[Gurd99]

address space is different than available ram. in a 32bit os you start with 4 GB of address space and only 2GB available per application. a 2GB video card would take up 2GB of address space leaving 2GB for all applications. under directX 9.0c and below the video ram must also be duplicated into available program address space so there would be 0 address space for a game. under dx10 and above that doesn't happen.

I'm note sure what you mean exactly & not sure if I would be fine getting something like a gtx980 4gb card? When a program is using address space, I take it that means system RAM is being used?
On 32bit os with 3.2GB max limit, are you saying a 4gb card wont work period? Or only with dx9 games? Or only if the game needs a large amount of gpu memory?

Sounds like it wont work for me anyway.

[aedipuss]

it's a major problem only with dx9

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/32-bit-vs-64-bit-how-it-relates-to-video-cards.91260/

[Gurd99]

it's a major problem only with dx9

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/32-bit-vs-64-bit-how-it-relates-to-video-cards.91260/

When gpu memory is duplicated into system RAM when launching a dx9 game, is it the whole fixed lot from the start or only however much the game requires?
thanks

[jagabo]

Graphics memory is mapped to an aperture in the x86 address space. The size of that aperture can vary, it doesn't have to match the amount of memory on the graphics card. The bigger the aperture the less often the driver has to map to different pages (ie, faster the performance) but then less address space is available to programs.