Windows 7 and Physical Memory

Total Physical Memory is the total available after Windows locks out the RAM address space it needs for accessing any external items such as the video RAM, etc. It's not unusual for a system with 512MB video RAM to have less than 3GB available RAM.

Depending on your laptop, you may or may not be able to see all 4GB of RAM if you switch to 64-bit Win 7. Only possible if your system board is able to do memory remapping.

Even with only 2.5GB free, you should have no problem running 99% of software. Win 7 32-bit uses only 1-1.3 GB RAM, leaving plenty for your application usage.

Well, the reason I was wondering because I play World of Warcraft. I had thought that if I upgraded my memory, then maybe the game would load faster and not be as choppy as when I had 2 GB of ram installed. Blizzard recommends that you have at least 2 GB installed for the game runs smoothly. When I installed the RAM and tried playing, the game was still choppy, so I decided to check the Physical and Available memory under the system information tool. That's when I found that the total Physical memory was 2.5 GB and the total Available memory was around 1.78 GB. That's what was getting me worried. Actually still is.

Then we could discuss the video card or the need to not used wifi for the game connection.

I was always told that I needed to upgrade the memory, that's why I did. I've played the game on both a wired connection and a wifi connection and I haven't noticed any difference in the lag or a increase or decrease of the choppy graphics.

Nvidia GeForce 8600 GTS 512 MB

But it looks like they mislead you. Choppy gameplay can be ram but more often is the video card.

You MIGHT get some reduction in chop by moving to 64 bit windows for many reasons I won't list here. But if this is some Nvidia 8600 or less card you explained it all with no further search needed for why it is choppy.

Nice card until you try high resolutions beyond 800x600.
Bob

Ahhh, ok. That must be the problem then. I'm playing the game on a 1400x900 resolution. Any recommendations for a video card?

I like this list -> http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-gaming-graphics-card,2544.html

Now you can pick your price and see what you get for the money.

Here my kid has the 1GB Nvidia GT220 and another machine has that fanless GT240. These were chosen for reasons like not having to change the power supply or having a nice quiet machine. A gamer would choose something else.
Bob

I have one concern with that. Since my motherboard is SLI capable, couldn't I load a second GeForce 8600 GTS card in the second slot? Would that increase the preformance since there are two video cards installed?

That unless it's cheap a new card would likely beat out the dated 8600 cards. You can check out the new card's ratings to see which wins the benchmarks.

I think the link I gave is last months. Here's the March 2010 link -> http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-graphics-card,2569.html
Bob

When using the SLI feature, don't they have to be the same card?

The answer I've seen is they must match. Frankly? I've never bothered. I pop out the old card, install the new and recycle the old card.
Bob

Unless that RAM is bad I'd look to that video card (under powered or a chipset) or your connection (packet loss) for that choppiness. Or as a long shot, maybe, but doubtfully the monitor

I have three GBs of RAM memory and I'm showing 3 GBs of RAM memory running a NVidia 8800 GS 384 MB of DDR3 RAM as the video card.

The OS is windows 7 Home Premium (64 bit)

Hmmm, I'm wonder if the got that RAM thing fixed in this version of Windows? In Vista I showed a shortage on a different machine with the same card. Had two GBs and showed less.

Is it possible they fixed something? LOL

GENE8:

You are not correct.

With ALL MS 32-bit operating systems, the system locks out RAM addresses that it needs to access additional features. The CPU CAN NOT address anything above 4GB, period. Anything, such as video RAM, even if the video GPU has it's own RAM, that the processor needs to access to do it's job,is assigned a section of high memory within the 4GB core RAM space. This space assigned to the video RAM IS NOT AVAILABLE to the system for any other use. The more dedicated video RAM, the less core RAM is available to the CPU. This has been true for many years, but only became an issue since RAM prices dropped in price and many began installing 4GB.

If you have 2-3GB core RAM, you don't see this problem, as most of the RAM address space assigned to the Video RAM is empty, so no loss is seen.

Going to a 64-bit OS can allow for little or no RAM address space loss, as the OS can address more space, 8+ GB, and the lost address space is not an issue. However, many older systems still do not allow more than 4GB of usable RAM. The system board chip-set in some cases does not allow this, and some system boards are not built with the additional address circuity needed.

Are processors considered 32 and 64 bit compliant? If that's the case, is the Intel Core 2 Duo a 32 bit processor, and could I have installed Windows 7 x64 instead of x32?