Thread: Question about laptop graphics card.

Okay ive got a laptop with a I7 core, 4 GB Ram, and other stuff. Anyways, i had to replace the hard drive recently and installed the wrong version of windows 7 (x32 instead of x64) anyways, i was too lazy to install it after i had installed half my stuff and then realised that it wouldn't accept the normal graphics driver, so i installed the nvidia card driver (the card i have is OEM) which is for a 1GB Graphics card, but the card i have is a 2GB GT420m

Question is, will i see much of a performance increase if i install windows 7 x64 and then installed the correct driver.

My understanding is that with 4GB or RAM there's no real advantage going x64.

As for the Nvidia drivers for your laptop; don't use the driver your laptop manufacturer provides. Use the latest with a hacked INF to get it to install: NVIDIA & Laptop News | Latest NVIDIA drivers and related news | laptopvideo2go.com

With 4GB I wouldn't worry too much about any difference between 32 or 64.

The driver you've installed should be the right one for 32bit. Memory size shouldn't matter. (Should be this one if up to date: NVIDIA DRIVERS 280.26 WHQL)

More to the point, im wondering if the driver i installed, is able to actually access the full 2GB Vram of the card, rather then the 1GB Vram card the driver was meant for.

Originally Posted by nroug7

More to the point, im wondering if the driver i installed, is able to actually access the full 2GB Vram of the card, rather then the 1GB Vram card the driver was meant for.

It should be fine. Is your card one of the types that use some of the ram as it was vram?

dunno, its an nvidia GT 420m (OEM Version), it might but i'm not certain.

Drivers are not based on Ram size only models of cards. Do what the lads suggest and install the latest driver.

yeah ive got the latest driver, whats the benefits of modifying one's inf?

You guys suck at computers and stuff.

First of all there's a reserve limit of about 512MB (that figure could be wrong). So if you've got 4GB of RAM and NO GPU you'll have about 3.5GB of addressable memory. With the graphics card (say 2GB) you will STILL have about 3.5GB of addressable memory.

So reinstall with a 64-bit OS. It's to your advantage.

PS. It doesn't matter what your OS SAYS it has, it can't address more that 3.5GB with stuff.

Edit: Seeing I'm not good at explaining things, here's a better one.

All 32-bit client versions of Windows (not just Vista/XP/7) have a 4GB limit. That's the theoretical upper limit beyond which you can not go.

But you can't use the entire 4GB of address space. Even though you have a 4GB address space, you can only use *around* 3.1GB of RAM. That's because some of that space is used by hardware and is not
available to the operating system and applications. The amount you can use varies, depending on what hardware you have installed, but can range from as little as 2GB to as much as 3.5GB. It's usually around 3.1GB.

So assuming the card is taking 2GB of that, you'll have less than 2GB accessible to do things. But I'm not sure how that works exactly so I could be wrong. Either way, I still recommend a reinstall.

Originally Posted by grandinferno

You guys suck at computers and stuff.

First of all there's a reserve limit of about 512MB (that figure could be wrong). So if you've got 4GB of RAM and NO GPU you'll have about 3.5GB of addressable memory. With the graphics card (say 2GB) you will STILL have about 3.5GB of addressable memory.

So reinstall with a 64-bit OS. It's to your advantage.

PS. It doesn't matter what your OS SAYS it has, it can't address more that 3.5GB with stuff.

Edit: Seeing I'm not good at explaining things, here's a better one.



So assuming the card is taking 2GB of that, you'll have less than 2GB accessible to do things. But I'm not sure how that works exactly so I could be wrong. Either way, I still recommend a reinstall.

is it possible to do so without losing all my stuff?