945G = GMA950? Simple graphics question

I just bought an Aspire One, 1gig with XP home (should be here on monday or tuesday) and I was curious about graphics. I'm well aware that this isn't a gaming machine, but I assure you, it won't stop me from running games on it. Anyways, I was able to run Eve online on my girlfriends PC which was a 82945G Onboard graphics chipset and was wondering if it would run similarly to the GMA950? According to Intel, they are in the same family.

Has anyone run Eve online succesfully? The PC I've used had way more processing power, but actually has less ram then my new netbook will, so that might actually give it a leg up. Any thoughts/experiences would be cool.

I've also heard that some of the older generation games run smoothly on the chipset (UT2004, CS 1.6, etc.), and I will try those out for sure.

 

Yes, same thing pretty much, though i don't game so I don't know how much ram is dynamically allocatable for video, I'm pretty sure 224MB was what the desktop graphics could allocate.

 

I used to run WoW on my Macbook that had similar processing power and the same graphics chipset as the AA1, and it was very RAM dependant. I don't know if that will directly translate to a windows machine, but it seems plausible.

Thanks for the reply.

 

WOW runs fine on the Aspire one. Need at least 1 gig of ram though.
512 isnt enough.

Better with the max of 1.5 gigs which is what I have.

 

With respect, I think this might be over simplifying the situation rather. Same series <> Same capabilities, which also very much depends on how the manufacturers choose to use the Intel chips (what ancilliary circuits are included and which pins are in use.) Just considering the size the Intel spec documents will give you an idea of the variety of configurations that are possible. Nevertheless, if you have 1st hand experience of AAO game engine capability, that's great news.

Not such a simple question, then

 

I dont think you can allocate more ram to the Graphic card on the AAO which i whished i could alocate 64/128/256 instead the measly 8

 

I just don't believe it allocates only 8MB, I think more is allocated dynamically when it needs to, at least the gma950's newer brother, the gma 3100 does!

 

i Wished it did, the bios only allows 8 and not changable.
Imagine being able to have 64-128 on this thing it be a beast =D

 

Running Vista and stripping it of most bloat softs should get you the best performance.

Vista can allocate more memory to IGPs IIRC.

 

I'm curious if it has similar performance to the 1st gen MacBooks with the GMA950 chipset, then atleast I'd have a comparison. I wish I would have known to check how much RAM it uses for graphics before I sold it.

If Vista is able to allocate more RAM for graphics, then wouldn't it be safe to say that it's atleast possible with some form of software that's available with XP? 8mb seems extremely low. I also wonder if Acer will release some new BIOS firmware at some point to allow us to change that.

 

Vista can allocate Ram for GPU ???
I thought that was an BIOS Function only for onbaord GPUs.

I know Hybrid Seperate GPU can reloacte and share Ram from the Mobo with OS.

But an onboard ???

 

Be aware that the normal GMA950 runs at around 400Mhz, the AA1's runs at 133Mhz, so performance will not be comparable.

 

wonder if its unlockable with a new Bios or if its just left out Hardware wise.

 

...more RAM doesn't mean better performance
Same for the PC and graphic cards

If the GPU processing power is low, it doesn't matter how much ram it has

 

My boss thinks it does :lol:

Given that this is shared system RAM, the performance difference between 64/128 (or any other random example) is going to negligible anyway. GFX cards with more memory are only faster because onboard RAM access is faster then accessing system RAM.

And AFAIK the amount of RAM the GPU uses is dynamic. I have run QIII on full everything, and I that wouldn't be possible if it was really limited to only 8MB of graphics memory.

 

Agreed GPU with More ram is faster. but if you get to the 512mb vs a 1gb like the (HD3870)there is minimal performace gain. but from 8mb to 16mb to 32mb etc etc i am pretty sure there are differnces =)

How would we know if its actually realocating some mroe ram into the onboard GPU ???

 

Use the Intel software, on Information i guess.
It goes from 8 to 224MB of RAM available to the graphics.

 

I was just about to post a new thread about this but searched for 224mb and came across this thead.

I agree that it has to be using more than 8MB for video. Although I haven't tried myself, I've seen YouTube videos of people playing UT2003, F.E.A.R., GTA3 and a bunch of other graphics intensive games.

So I took a look at the graphics card properties, and sure enough; it's showing 224MB of video memory.

I took a screenshot to show everyone:

 

Any way to increase memory allocation in linux linpus?

 

I'll repeat again, having a lot of video memory doesn't improve performance
It will only help if you can't run the game in higher resolutions or unable to use higher resolution textures, which wouldn't make sense as the framerate is already low to begin with