Two Technical Questions - One about RAM, the other about my video chipset.?

Question

1.) I have 512 MB of RAM physically installed on my computer. Yet the system diagnostics only show me as having 504 MB. What is making those other 8 MB unavailable, and how can I change that?

2.) My computer is a pre-built Compaq Presario SR1250NX, and apparently I don't have a video card per se, but some kind of built-in Intel chipset. It's the Intel 82915G/GV/910GL Express Chipset, specifically. I can't seem to find any way of analyzing or comparing this video chip to known real video cards, such as NVIDIA. What I want to know is how to determine, based on this mysterious video chipset that I have, whether or not my computer meets the requirements for various games. The game's requirements will say something like, "ATI X800 series, Nvidia GeForce 6800 series, or higher video card." How can I determine my chipset's equivalency with these standard cards?

Answer 1

1. 8Mb is initial shared RAM for graphics. Intel's DVMT then dynamically allocates more RAM for graphics, depending on demand. 3D applications like games need more graphics memory. Better increase your system RAM to 1Gb. When a bigger portion of your 512Mb is shared for graphics, the remaining small RAM slows down overall PC performance. Installing a dedicated graphics card makes ALL of system RAM available for your programs.

2. 82915G/GV/910GL chipsets have the Intel GMA 900 integrated graphics. It is a quite outdated integrated graphics that shares up to 128Mb of memory.
http://www.intel.com/products/chipsets/gma900/index.htm
Most integrated graphics have weak architecture and are slow when compared to dedicated graphics cards. GMA 900 has 4 pixel shaders and NO vertex shader.

Answer 2

1) You may have 512 MB of RAM installed but usually Video uses some of that memory, or some other hardware device.

2) An Intel Chipset driver is for the motherboard and processor, without it, the board does not communicate well with the other devices. It's not for video.

Check ou this link, it will show you what the back connections will look like if you have integrated video, or if you have a video card.
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=bph03739&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&os=228&product=432786&rule=43762&lang=en

If you wanted to open it up to check out your card (if you have one), here's your manual to see how it's done:
http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c00225000.pdf

Good Luck!

Answer 3

1.Part of your ram is borrowed for your system.
2.Download the small program, CPU-Z from CPUID.com It'll tell you, all about the hardware inside your computer.
3.I doubt that your On-board graphic's, will run these games, but I've been wrong before!