Terralthra wrote:Are you sure you know the difference between "Windows 7" and "BIOS"? Because one of these things controls how much system memory gets assigned to the graphics card, and one does not.
The BIOS does not control how much memory the graphics card grabs, but the firmware inside the graphics card and the gfx card driver. Technically Windows can deny the driver the requested address space, but that generally causes crashes.
Client 32 Bits Windows by it's nature can only see 2^32 bytes of
virtual address space. This means every that uses memory windows to communicate (ie everything using DMA) reduces the total amount of memory Windows can address(since the kernel internally uses 32bit virtual addressing). In
addition Windows clients OS have restrictions where it will reject any
physical address space over 2^32 due to compatibility, because Nivdia fucking shit drivers shat it's pants when passed a legitmate 36 bit physical address space pointer.
Note; 32bit x86 CPUs since the p4 or so can actually do 36 bit addressing(PAE mode, required to use the No eXecute bit). Most 64bit x86 cpus only support 48 bit addressing(with expansion via revisions upto 52bits) of physical address space, and starting at 40bits or 48bits of virtual addres space(expandable to the full 64bits).
"Okay, I'll have the truth with a side order of clarity." ~ Dr. Daniel Jackson.
"Reality has a well-known liberal bias." ~ Stephen Colbert
"One Drive, One Partition, the One True Path" ~ ars technica forums - warrens - on hhd partitioning schemes.
