Video Card vs. Video Memory Question

J

jdunk90

New Member
I recently bought a Toshiba laptop with 256 MB worth of video memory. I assumed this meant I had decent gaming capability for just your average computer games.

I tried playing Ages of Empires 3 today and it said my video card is 32 MB and I need at least 64 MB. This came as a surprise to me. If the memory and the card capacities aren't the same, how do I know how good a graphics card is> The only thing I can find specs on are the video memory when I look at new computers and even aftermarket video cards.

Can somebody shed some light on this basic question?
 
you should be able to increase the amount of memory your graphics can use.

its currently set to 32Mb but i dont realy think increasing the memory for the graphics will make a whole lot a diferance in a laptop.
 
It's also knows as the Complementary Metal Oxcide Semiconductor :P

Just press DEL, F1, F2, F10 at startup. You should see an blue screen when there.
 
I'm still having problems figuring out how to change the setting to 64 MB. Can somebody give me a step-by-step guide on how to do it on Vista?
 
CMOS/BIOS has nothing to do with Vista. CMOS/BIOS is an little chip on your motherboard. Just boot up your laptop and press all the keys I specified, if it gives you an blue screenm, then you've hit it.
 
I got to the BIOS, but there isn't anything you can change that I could see. I looked at it for about 10 minutes. I couldn't find much of anything that could be tweaked.
 
many times, more often than not, if you don't know about computers, you'll miss what you are looking to find in the BIOS and mess things up. i don't eve think you can do this in the BIOS. use a software to find out for sure how much memory is really dedicated to your graphics. I'm sure it must be using your RAM from your computer for it. if it runs out of RAM when needing to play i game i guess it will use what little you have left. so i guess if that's the case you only got 32MB left when your trying to play the game. of course this may not be the problem, its just my guess.
 
What are the specs on your laptop, or at least the model number? Besides you probably have integrated video anyways, which wont work (well) with AoE3.
 
Processor Brand: Intel
Processor Class: Pentium Dual-Core
Processor Number: T2080
Processor Speed: 1.73 GHz
Front Side Bus: 533 MHz
Mobile Technology: Centrino
L2 Cache Size: 1 MB
System Chipset: Intel 943GML Express
Memory Speed: PC2-4200 (533MHz)
Memory Type: DDR2-SDRAM
Installed Memory: 1 GB
Maximum Memory: 2 GB
Memory Slots Total: 2
Total Hard Drive Capacity: 120 GB
Drive Controllers: SATA-150
Rotational Speed: 5400 RPM
Additional Drives: DL DVD SuperMulti
Sound Support: Digital Audio (16-bit)
Video Chipset Brand: Intel
Video Chipset: Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 950
Shared Video RAM (Max): 256 MB
Resolution: 1280 x 800

I'm thinking maybe I have 256 MB that are dedicated to video, but maybe my video card is still only 32 MB. That seems kind of crappy though. I can't seem to find what graphics card I have.
 
I think you were right. The Intel Graphic Media Accelerator basically functions as the graphics card. The Intel website states that 224 MB can be used for video but only if there is enough left over from running other processes. I will go ahead and upgrade my ram and that should do the trick.
 
I have that crappy GMA 950 in my laptop, it doesnt even do anything. Its a joke, spend 1100$ on a laptop, and they put in that piece of crap. If my stepdad didnt go out and buy it for me before i had a say in what i want, that wouldnt have happened.
 
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