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newbie question, what's ATI RADEON XPRESS 200M do?

post #1 of 3
9/10/05 at 10:36pm
Thread Starter 
Hi all,

I'm a total newbie with laptops, and I've a question.
The video card/driver thingy in my laptop is called "ATI RADEON XPRESS 200M", but I have no idea what that means. It says it's only 32 MB, but that seems just a little stingy. I think I read somewhere that you can actually set the memory from 32 MB to 128MB? Did I read right, or was that just hopeful thinking?

I'd appreciate it if somebody could explain to me how the heck that works. And also demystify the whole video card memory expansion.

I have a Compaq Presario M2105US.
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post #2 of 3
9/10/05 at 10:51pm
That is ATI's version of their integrated graphics. Basically, it is part of their new ATI XPRESS chipset. Since it is integrated, it basically takes a portion of your RAM and uses it for graphics. E.g: Say you have 512 mb ram. 512-32 = 480 RAM left for the system to use, while the 32 is put towards the integrated graphics.

You can change it up to 128 if you go in the BIOS and there should be an option somewhere to set it. I am not sure exactly how to get into the bios on yours but usally, on most PCs and laptops, it is either the delete key or F2.

What kind of stuff are you doing that you want to change it up to 128 megs for? If you only do the normal word processing/internet and watch movies, you really don't need to change the settings. If you want to play games, integrated graphics are definitely not the way to go, since they offer poor performance in the newest games.
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post #3 of 3
9/11/05 at 3:11am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by pyro_dragun
That is ATI's version of their integrated graphics. Basically, it is part of their new ATI XPRESS chipset. Since it is integrated, it basically takes a portion of your RAM and uses it for graphics. E.g: Say you have 512 mb ram. 512-32 = 480 RAM left for the system to use, while the 32 is put towards the integrated graphics.

You can change it up to 128 if you go in the BIOS and there should be an option somewhere to set it. I am not sure exactly how to get into the bios on yours but usally, on most PCs and laptops, it is either the delete key or F2.

What kind of stuff are you doing that you want to change it up to 128 megs for? If you only do the normal word processing/internet and watch movies, you really don't need to change the settings. If you want to play games, integrated graphics are definitely not the way to go, since they offer poor performance in the newest games.
first off, thank you lots for the reply. now i'm pretty sure i know what the graphics chip does.

i do intend on putting a game on my laptop, but it's a pretty old one: Unreal Tournament Game of the Year Edition (it's to kill major time during my 3-hour lunch breaks). Since it's not a hardware demanding game (requires 200 MHz, and "Video System: PCI Local Bus Video Card (8M 3D accelerator recommended)"), I think I'll be OK. I'll probably just up the graphics memory to 64 MB, if I ever find out how to do it.

I'm sure I'll be posting again asking you folks for help!

So uh, that'll be all. For now.


daver
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