Bootcamp (WinXP) on MBP | 512 MB shared memory assigned!?! HELP?

[randfee2]

Hi folks,

A couple of days ago while playing Crysis Beta I got the idea to tweak my XP Pro SP2 install for video performance. I noticed that windows thinks my MBP has a 8600mGT with 512MB of RAM. Since we all know it has only 256 the rest must be another 256 assigned as shared memory of the main RAM. This is bad, very bad, since that will drop general performance.

No driver I tried, Bootcamp 1.3/1.4 nor Nvidia 163.69/163.71/156.57 change the fact that windows assigns extra RAM to the card.

I'm out of ideas, does anybody know how to fix this or what the problem is? The simulated BIOS probably? Can people please check their own machines' video settings if you have XP Pro SP2 installed.

 

[The Flashing Fi]

It's called turbocache for Nvidia and hypermemory for ATI/AMD.

Here is a tutorial for Windows XP.

Since you're using a laptop, don't worry so much about updating the drivers, since Nvidia doesn't post drivers for notebook video cards.

http://howtotroubleshoot.blogspot.com/2007/05/how-to-disable-turbocache.html

If you want to update your drivers, go here:

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=14549

Up at the top you'll see:

Driver | Modded INF (NOT ready yet) | INF Enhancer | Quickstart Guide

Click Driver and install, however, I'm assuming Bootcamp uses pretty new drivers and that they're not bad.

 

[randfee2]

hey, I know that is called turbo cache but how do I deactivate it? Never seen it applied under XP, but then again, it has been a while since I upgraded my old PC.

I also use laptopvideo2go for every driver, thanks tho . Why shouldn't I bother with driver updates, I know the "official laptop drivers" are not updated often and are due to the vendor of the machines, but with a modded INF you can always get the newest desktop version without a problem. Currently I have the 163.71 installed which was released as WHQL yesterday. The 163.69 was the first one to have "Crysis optimizations", that's why.

Anyway:
I'm not sure about the performance influence though because games might get the idea to take advantage of the full 512MB they see and allocate stuff to all of it. In this case the RAM will be used inefficiently since proper RAM caching is not done anymore. I'm fairly sure it can affect the performance, but not positively. Who would now if it does, the easiest way would be to deactivate it. I'm having a look at your link now.

 

[Eidorian]

I thought that newer drivers resolved this problem where it'll report itself with 512 MB. Are you still reading full system RAM?

 

[randfee2]

no, I have 4GB of System RAM and I only see 3, but that is XP:

@ Flashing Fi
Why did you link me to the older driver? Well, as I said, I'm using 163.71
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_163.71.html which came out yesterday...

 

[The Flashing Fi]

I linked you to laptopvideo2go because the ones on Nvidia are for desktop video cards to my knowledge. There is a difference between the desktop version of the 8600 GT and the mobile version of the 8600 GT. I'm not really positive if Nvidia has unified their drivers between the mobile line and the desktop line.

You also listed several drivers that I guess you've tried, so I really had no idea what you were actually using.

I also said to not worry about it, because with my experience, the latest drivers are not always the greatest and I doubt it's necessary to have the latest to disable turbocache.

My question to you, is did you read the first link I posted and tried it out? And, where are you reading that Windows thinks your 8600 GT has 512 megs of RAM?

 

[randfee2]

yep, I've taken a look at the link you provided and I will try it in a minute. I have RivaTuner 2.05 which officially supports the 163.71 but it didn't work when I tried it (the overclocking part) yesterday. So I'm not sure if this would work either. As for the driver itself, my performance for the Crysis BETA I'm testing at the moment increased by 10% with these drivers over the newest mobile drivers 156.xx. which were better than the original (Apple) Bootcamp 1.4 drivers already.

The amount of 512 MB is shown on Display/Advanced/Adapter (or was it just adapter), where it gives you the name and the memory of the card...

 

[Helfeather]

randfee2

I am unable to help you but, I'm very interested in your post.

What do you mean by installing/updating drivers?

I game a lot, and any increase in video performance would help.

Sorry, I'm not very familiar w/ these terms -_-

 

[randfee2]

Nvidia continuously optimizes their drivers for new games so it is a good idea to update drivers quite often. Only in rare occasions a newer driver gives worse performance than an older one. Since the notebook manufacturers are responsible to update the drivers for laptops and not NVidia most people use the desktop drivers (which get released every couple of days). In order to do that, you need a modified INF. All of this is explained here

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com


I still haven't found a working solution to turn of turbocache. hm...

 

[PhatBoyG]

Sorry the 8600m GT does not have TC, the drivers that come with BootCamp 1.4 are wrong.

When you upgrade to the latest (using the LaptopVideo2Go INF) drivers, you'll see that it properly identifies the 256MB of GDDR3 RAM. You'll also see you in-game FPS go up quite a bit, but you won't be able to overclock yet since the 160-series drivers don't have that enabled yet.

 

[randfee2]

you're wrong, the 8600mGT (some) has TurboCache and I see it in windows since it does state my card has 512MB. That's a fact. On Wiki there is also a note stating that some to have TC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TurboCache)
Not only the bootcamp drivers do that, all Nvidia drivers do that. If you would have read my first post you would know that. I also know laptopvideo2go, that's where I got the INF from to install 163.71 WHQL.

I still have no way to deactivate TurboCache...