Slightly different memory question

[Karl F. Larsen]

Mark Haney wrote:
> Scott wrote:
>   
>> Hi,
>>
>> 	I have a Inspiron 1525 with 4GB of Ram and I noticed through system 
>> monitor that the 32-bit Ubuntu sees 3.5GB of that.  I know my video card 
>> uses 256MB, so does this mean that I am using a total of 3.75GB or is 
>> that 256MB included in the 3.5GB listed?
>>
>> 	This question is important to me as I am trying to decide if I should 
>> move to a 64-bit system or not.  Losing 500MB bugs me a little more than 
>> loosing 256MB.
>>
>>
>>     
>
> That depends, does your video card use shared video memory?  You can
> find that in the BIOS as normally you can adjust that down if you need
> to conserve RAM for non-video needs.
>
> A lot of laptops do that, but I don't know that all of them do. Mine
> does not, but yours might be different.
>
> If it's NOT shared memory, then you're only seeing 3.5GB on the 32bit
> system. However, I'd be willing to bet that you ARE using shared memory,
> as typically a 32-bit system sees 3.7 to 3.8GB of RAM our of 4GB.
>
>
>
>   
    All this memory problems make me VERY happy I have just 2 GB of RAM 
in all my computers. I did this with the help of "top". I checked my 
computer with 500 MB of RAM and it was using the swap file a lot! Slowed 
down performance. Then I got 1 GB and that was lots better but the swap 
file was still being used a little. So I upgraded to 2 GB and now the 
swap file does not need to be there. It is ever used with 2 GB of RAM.

    So why have 4 GB??


Karl


-- 

	Karl F. Larsen, AKA K5DI
	Linux User
	#450462   http://counter.li.org.
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