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June 28th, 2018 16:00

Dedicated Video Memory from System Memory on Motherboard

I just bought a kingston 260 pin DDR4 sodimm laptop memory for my Dell Inspiron 15 5576.

I need to find out why it still is saying 512MB still?

 

Both are made by Kingston

1xR 8GB PC4-19200-2400T SA1-11 2400MHz RAM both are the same type.

My system is Dual Channel support for gaming

 

Two 8Gb sticks are 512MB of dedicated video memory on the motherboard system memory.

 

This is separate than the RX560 4GB GDDR5 memory VRAM...

 

Now,What do I need to do to make it work or register it?

 

It is the correct RAM and yes I checked to make sure it was installed right...and it was new never used...

 

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It should increase the system memory size known on the motherboard dedicated video memory for the motherboard to 1GB.

 

1 8Gb stick is 512MB now installing the other should equal it to 1GB..

 

get it?

 

I did this with the memory upgrade in my old laptop and the system memory dedicated video memory for the motherboard increased from 384MB to 512MB then I had a 4GB stick and a 2GB stick that was 384MB...

 

installing the exact same 4Gb then increase it to 512MB....

 

applying the same upgrade logic here..should see a change in the memory system to 512MB to 1GB....

 

 

Link to Old post to show what I am talking about:

 

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-hardware-winpc/dedicated-ram-and-total-available-memory-and/3e807c6d-ef89-4a63-85e4-ce5f2c1df32a

 

 

Example from my old post about my old laptop

 

Image

 

Good news

same type

SAMSUNG 4GB RAM DDR4 PC4-2133P (PC4 17000) Laptop Notebook memory M471A5143DB0-CPB

here is the Display Adapter update...I never thought it would automatically update...holy cow it did...

 

Image

 

Now, that you made it to the bottom of the page,How do I get my system to update the motherboard system memory size from 512MB to 1GB and don't tell it can't be done....

 

please reply with instructions on where in Regedit or BIOS to make this change to happen...or do I need to take the bottom stick out and put in in the top slot and put my new stick in the bottom>?

9 Legend

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14K Posts

July 1st, 2018 10:00

Once again, video RAM is not going to be your bottleneck in a system like this. It will be your GPU and/or CPU clock speed, so you really don’t need to keep obsessing over this. If you wanted to keep playing AAA titles at high detail, you should have bought a higher-end system.

To answer your questions, as I’ve already said, video memory allocation is not always a fixed percentage of system memory, and it definitely doesn’t occur on a per-stick basis; the system would always look the total amount of installed memory, regardless of how much is available on a specific stick. Dual channel memory is a completely separate and unrelated concept from allowing the GPU to use some using system memory in addition to its own VRAM.

The system firmware probably has a rule something like, “Dedicate a certain percentage of system RAM to the GPU, but always make sure you dedicate at least X amount of system memory to the GPU, and never dedicate more than Y amount.” In your case, 512MB might be the most that your system will dedicate, or possibly the most that your GPU will request. But as I’ve also said, because of the high SHARED memory allocation. the GPU can already use a lot more system memory than what has been dedicated, as long as the system doesn’t need it. And if the system DOES need that memory, then even if you COULD force the GPU to use it instead, you’ll probably get worse performance overall from taking that memory away from the system when it could have used it. So again, I don’t understand why you’re obsessing over this. Even if there were a way to do what you wanted, it would either not make a difference (if the GPU was already using more memory anyway through the shared allocation), or it could make things WORSE because you took away memory capacity from the system.

The Regedit option you’re thinking about wasn’t removed. It was never there, because once again, this allocation is controlled by hardware/firmware, not the OS.

I’m not sure what you’re talking about when you say “I was under the impression that doing this change would help the CPU use the mobo dedicated video memory alongside the GPU VRAM...together...” The CPU never gets to use any memory that has been allocated as “dedicated video memory”. That is what “dedicated” means! There also isn’t a separate memory dedication for the CPU, because the CPU gets whatever memory hasn’t been dedicated to any other components, except shared memory that the GPU can request if the CPU doesn’t need it. And the CPU never gets to use the GPU’s VRAM, which is always dedicated to the GPU. So the change you’re talking about would not help the “CPU use dedicated video memory and VRAM together”. It would allow the GPU to use more SYSTEM memory — which again could give you worse performance overall for reasons I already explained.

I also don’t know what you’re referring to with the 5576 and the locked out SP cores, and I don’t really want to keep spending time on this thread, so you don’t have to explain it to me. But cores get locked out by firmware all the time, usually by the firmware of the component itself, not the system firmware. For example, AMD and NVIDIA sell lots of different GPU models with different clock speeds and active cores, but they don’t have separate manufacturing processes for all of those models. Instead, they make a batch of GPUs and then test them. The ones that test perfectly and at the highest desired clock speed get sold as top-end products. But some GPUs might have a manufacturing defect in the silicon that causes one of its cores to not work properly, or it might only perform reliably at lower clock speeds — so what do they do with those? They COULD just throw them out as defective units, but that would cost a lot of money. OR they can just disable the defective cores and/or set the clock speed lower and sell those imperfect GPUs as a lower-end model instead of wasting them, which is exactly what happens. Intel does the exact same thing with CPUs, which is why they have so many different models these days. If they make a batch of 8-core CPUs and a few of them have 1 defective core, then that core and one other core that might work fine both get disabled, and then those units get sold as 6-core CPUs. So that’s probably what happened with your GPU cores. Or if cores are in fact being disabled at a system firmware level rather than a GPU firmware level, it could be that the system doesn’t have enough cooling to run the GPU with all cores active, so enabling them would not be safe in that system.

Anyway, I’m done with this thread. I’ve explained everything as best I can at this point, and I really don’t see the point of spending more of my time on this. I hope you’ve learned something here and maybe understand why the change you seem to want would not necessarily improve performance in your case, in fact it could make it worse. But if you’re still disappointed that you can’t make this change, then I’m sorry you’re disappointed, but you shouldn’t expect that to change on this system, and if you do research on modern systems, I think you will find that most of them do not allow changing this setting either. And I will also point out that since you don’t even seem to understand how all of this works, maybe it’s a good thing that you can’t reconfigure things, because people who THINK they know what they’re doing can end up making things worse when they change things that they don’t fully understand.

9 Legend

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14K Posts

July 3rd, 2018 10:00


@me262schwalbe1 wrote:

I do not like buying RAM and not seeing the allocation not work...the 512MB not going up to 1024MB dedicated video memory on the board only means...that buying two 16GB sticks is not worth it...


If your goal is only to increase dedicated video memory, then you're correct that buying two 16GB sticks isn't worth it.  But buying two 16GB sticks may still allow the GPU to use more memory by increasing the shared memory allocation if the system doesn't need all of that additional memory -- and of course the system itself might benefit from having more memory even if it doesn't change anything for the GPU.  But as I've already explained, even if it were possible to increase that dedicated memory to 1024MB, that will not necessarily improve anything if the GPU was already using shared memory, and it could actually make things worse overall.

June 28th, 2018 16:00

I have the most recent BIOS update from Dell..since february....

I can reboot to bios menu and check...it would be UEFI

 

 

I rebooted and came to a Dell white menu screen telling me that "My system memory has changed you need to reboot or reseat the memory"... and it has a big yellow exclamation point at the start of warning.

 

 

9 Legend

 • 

14K Posts

June 28th, 2018 16:00

Why do you assume that the allocated video memory will always be the same fraction of total installed system memory, or that completely different laptop models will operate the same way?  Doubling your total system memory will NOT necessarily always double the amount of system memory dedicated to video.  It's entirely possible that different systems have different maximum amounts of video memory they will dedicate, regardless of how much memory you install.  And again, different systems might have different allocation strategies.

If your system shows the correct total amount of system memory at this point and you don't see any BIOS options on that system to customize the amount of memory dedicated to the graphics card, then there's nothing wrong; the system just isn't configured to operate the way you assumed.  And this isn't something you can change with a registry tweak, since this is a hardware/firmware behavior.

9 Legend

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14K Posts

June 28th, 2018 17:00


@me262schwalbe1 wrote:

I made sure I seated the memory correctly...now,I do not understand why this system will not allocate that extra 8GB of RAM data to the system Memory size by doubling it....

it has been done on other systems and I did this as mentioned above before with the exact same ram as the one in my old pc at the time....

both sticks of ram are the exact same type and are 260 pin...with the same labeling...1xR 8GB PC4-19200-2400T SA1-11 2400MHz

I am just not sure what setting is preventing my RAM from being auto-adjusted on my mobo system memory?

that is not normal...all pc's are able to recognize ram installs and are to automatically adjust the system memory size to a it's higher number...


Ok, your first post asked about why your video memory wasn't changing.  Now you're asking about system memory?  If you want to check system memory rather than video memory, then why are you looking at the Properties pane of your video card?  Nothing in that window says "Total System Memory".  Everything in there has to do with video memory and how much system memory is shared with the GPU.  Systems will NOT always allow all of their system memory to be shared with the GPU.

If you want to see system memory in Windows 10, go to Settings > System > About.  Or better yet, go into your BIOS Setup by pressing F2 at startup, then click the System Summary/Information section at the very top of the list in the left-hand column.  In the information display to the right, how much system memory is being detected there?  On a side note, do you really have to add an empty line after every single sentence?  It makes for a lot of unnecessary scrolling to read your posts....

June 28th, 2018 17:00

I made sure I seated the memory correctly...now,I do not understand why this system will not allocate that extra 8GB of RAM data to the system Memory size by doubling it....

 

it has been done on other systems and I did this as mentioned above before with the exact same ram as the one in my old pc at the time....

 

 

both sticks of ram are the exact same type and are 260 pin...with the same labeling...1xR 8GB PC4-19200-2400T SA1-11 2400MHz 

 

I am just not sure what setting is preventing my RAM from being auto-adjusted on my mobo system memory?

 

that is not normal...all pc's are able to recognize ram installs and are to automatically adjust the system memory size to a it's higher number...

9 Legend

 • 

14K Posts

June 28th, 2018 17:00


@me262schwalbe1 wrote:

I turned off my pc and switched the ram modules and put the one on the bottom on top and the new one on the bottom an still not change.


Again, I'm not sure why you're expecting a change.  Read my post above.

June 28th, 2018 17:00

Now,I just switched them back again to their original slot...still no change..

June 28th, 2018 17:00

The only difference between the two are the module part number

Module Part Number:                                                             KMKYF9-MIB

Module Part Number:                                                             KMKYF9-MIH

 

MIB variant image.PNGMIH variant image.PNG

June 28th, 2018 17:00

I turned off my pc and switched the ram modules and put the one on the bottom on top and the new one on the bottom an still not change.

9 Legend

 • 

14K Posts

June 28th, 2018 17:00

And realistically, the difference between 4.5 GB and 5 GB of video memory is not going to make any difference at all in terms of graphics performance on that system.  If you were playing any type of game where the extra 512 MB of memory you're hoping to see made a difference, chances are your bottleneck in a game like that would be the CPU or GPU clock speed, not GPU memory.  Realistically, that extra 512 MB of memory you want to see dedicated to the video card is probably doing more good by being available to the system in general, where it can improve overall performance.

9 Legend

 • 

14K Posts

June 28th, 2018 18:00

For what it's worth, I'm sitting here on a Latitude 7480 with 16GB of RAM and only an Intel GPU, and that properties page for me says this:

Available Graphics Memory: 8262 MB
Dedicated Video Memory: 128 MB
System Video Memory: 0 MB
Shared System Memory: 8134 MB

I also have an XPS 15 9530 with 16GB of RAM, and it has both an Intel GPU and a GeForce GPU.  Here's what it says:

Available Graphics Memory: 2176 MB
Dedicated Video Memory: 128 MB
System Video Memory: 0 MB
Shared System Memory: 2048 MB

So again, different systems work differently, and the fact that you have added more system RAM does NOT always mean your system will allow more to be shared with the GPU(s).  That does not mean there is something wrong with the system.  The fact that this system is not behaving the way you expect it to based on your experience with other systems is irrelevant.

June 29th, 2018 12:00

I need a expert helper to come and help me find the regedit path to the amount of system memory for my RAM use...I will take responsibility in my own hands....I have done IT tech courses and done halfway through,so I can handle it on my own..I just need help finding the Registry Path to the 512MB size for system memory...in Regedit...

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Is this the path to the amount of vram installed on my Motherboard?

I typed HardwareInformation.memorySize 

and this is what came up..

 

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 What I am trying to find is this:

 Under Windows, you can read the total amount of video memory in the registry.

Step 1: go in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/HARDWARE/DEVICEMAP/VIDEO and find the device key matching your video card, for example \Device\Video0. The string contains a path to the registry.

Step 2: Go to that path. Find the key called "HardwareInformation.MemorySize". It contains the binary representation of the amount of VRAM.

There's of course no guarantee it'll always work, especially in the case of non ATI / Nvidia video cards.

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Here is another example:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Intel

Right-click the Intel folder on the left sidebar and choose New > Key. Name this key GMM. Once you’ve made it, select the new GMM folder on the left and right-click inside the right side. Select New > DWORD (32-bit) Value. Name this DedicatedSegmentSize and give it a value, making sure to select the Decimal option. In MB, the minimum value is 0 (disabling the entry) and the maximum is 512. Set this value, restart your computer, and see if it helps a game run.

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These methods aren’t guaranteed to work, but they’re still worth a try if you run into issues. If you don’t have a lot of system RAM and are having trouble running games with integrated graphics, try adding some additional RAM for the integrated graphics to use. Like most tasks, this is usually next to impossible on a laptop and simple on a desktop.

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 On some forums I found a article on how to find the path that leads to the "Installed RAM 16GB on the Motherboard"

having 1 8GB stick gave me 512MB of Dedicated video memory for the integrated R7 to us on the board....

When I installed the other exact same type of 8GB RAM The system did not auto-adjust the amount from 512MB to 1GB

I want to find the path to that amount of vram of 512MB registry key in regedit and change it to 1024MB....I have 16GB

 How do I find it on a AMD System with a R7 integrated and a Discrete GPU RX560 switchable Graphic system?

 

9 Legend

 • 

14K Posts

June 29th, 2018 16:00

I’ve been an IT professional for 15 years. The amount of memory the system dedicated and shares with the video card is controlled at a HARDWARE/FIRMWARE level, which is why on SOME systems that allow it to be customized, it is configured in the BIOS. It is not and never has been configurable in Windows, because this isn’t something the OS can control. Video memory allocation is performed before the system even starts loading the OS. Even if you find registry settings, often they will simply store values they have received by querying the hardware. That does not mean that manually changing them will actually create any difference in how the system works. At best it will simply cause Windows to display inaccurate information somewhere or operate improperly.

You’re of course welcome to keep wasting your time, but I’ve already shown you that different systems make different video memory allocations even when they have the same total amount of system RAM. The fact that you had 512MB of video RAM when you had 8GB of system memory DOES NOT MEAN that the system will allocate an additional 512MB when you add another 8GB of system RAM. Video memory allocations are not always a consistent percentage of system RAM.

And again, why would you WANT your system to dedicate more memory to the graphics card? The graphics card already has access to up to 8.5 GB of memory through sharing, and the advantage to sharing is that if the SYSTEM needs it instead, then the system can use it instead of the graphics card. But when it’s dedicated, then system can’t use that memory even if it needs it and even if your graphics card isn’t using it. That is not better. You even said yourself that dedicating more memory to the graphics card only makes sense when you have limited system RAM, but you have 16GB.

June 30th, 2018 18:00

Ok,So if I want to make changes in my system I need to wait for Dell to give me a BIOS that will allow me to make adjustment's to the GPU and Dedicated memory with the extra RAM?

 

Otherwise ,I am wasting my time due to the fact I don't have the option at the moment to make changes, correct?

 

So,Can you also explain why is it now,That Dell is always Behind on BIOS and GPU driver's?

And can you confirm that there are expert's testing the driver's before hand on a a testing system in a testing room before release?

kinda silly releasing driver's that cause errr sounds and hardware crashes, yes?

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