AGP graphic cards

[mek1951]

I am keeping a Dell Dimension 8300 with a 2.6Gh P4 processor ticking along until I can afford to replace it. I have upgraded the RAM to 4G and the Hard Drive to WD Caviar 500G @ 7200. I am new to AutoCad, but Photoshop was very grateful for the new energy. Problem: my random replacement Graphic Card, Radeon 9200SE, is clearly inadequate to the task, and I have only the AGP slot to work with. I would invest in a proper workstation card, but AGP is clearly the wave of the past, and it would be a throwaway when I replace this aging workhorse. I cannot filter the Cad hardware list for AGP, can you? Thank you. My apology if my question is redundant MEK1951

[ReMark]

You can probably find a used nVidia Quadro4 980 XGL graphics card that would work. It comes with 128MB DDR SDRAM onbaord. I've seen them sell for as little at $95.

[Tankman]

Some of the Quadro graphic cards are very costly.

 

Check out ReMark's advice, try Amazon or eBay too.

 

Curious, what OS are you using? And, of course, welcome to the forums!

[ReMark]

Since the OP is looking for an AGP card I'm figuring a used one will be cheap although I'm sure you could probably find a new one (still in the box) on eBay or craiglist that someone bought and never installed.

[Tankman]

Craiglist would be nice, local, drive over and pickup the graphics card.

 

I was curious 'bout the 4G memory, profile OS is XP.

Does XP recognize over 3G of memory?

 

I have one of the nVidia video/graphics cards installed in the same Dell desktop.

512mb of onboard memory, works fine and purchased in the box, new, second hand never used. A good deal.

[ReMark]

XP will not recognize over 3GB unless it is setup to do so. This involves editting the boot.ini file for what is commonly referred to as the 3GB Switch. Even so, the system will report less than the full of amount.

[sinc]

That's not true.

 

XP can use up to 4GB of RAM. The problem is that each application is restricted to a "Virtual Address Space" of 4GB of RAM, and by default, half of that is reserved for the OS. That means that each application can address a maximum of 2GB of "Virtual Address Space". If it tries to use any more than that, it runs out of memory.

 

You can change the allocation of the "Virtual Address Space" to reduce the amount of memory allocated to the system, down to 1GB, and give the remaining 3GB to the application. That's the 3GB switch. However, giving 3GB to the application and 1GB to the system can cause problems, especially with some older video drivers. Sometimes, you can get best results by using the USERVA switch instead, to do something like give 2.5GB to the application and 1.5GB to the OS.

 

But keep in mind that this only affects the way the Virtual Address Space is allocated. Each application has 4GB of Virtual Address Space allocated, no matter how much RAM you have in your system. This "Virtual Memory" is then stored in a combination of your RAM and your pagefile. If you don't have enough RAM, then data is swapped out to the pagefile to make more room in RAM.

 

This is true of each application on your system. Each application has its virtual address space split over RAM and the pagefile, and if the system starts to run low on RAM, it keeps the most-recently-used stuff in RAM, and writes the rest out to the pagefile to make more room in RAM. (Well, it's actually a bit more complicated, but that's the general gist.)

 

This means that on 32-bit Windows, you can have up to 4GB of RAM in your system, and you system will use all of it. However, each individual application will run out of memory if it tries to use more than 2GB-3GB of memory, depending on how you have your switches set. This is still true even if you have 1GB of RAM in you system. However, if you have only 1GB of RAM in your system, it will have to do a LOT more swapping of stuff between RAM and the hard drive. If it has to do too much, your system essentially grinds to a halt, and sits in la-la-land forever when you try to do something. Or the application crashes due to flaws in Windows XP's memory management, which can come to light when the system is intensely swapping.

 

If Windows is not reporting the full amount of RAM you have installed in your system, that's usually because your motherboard has reserved some of it for some purpose.

[ReMark]

XP will not recognize the FULL 4GB.

[sinc]

If you're saying that an application cannot use more than 3GB of memory, then yes, that's true. But XP can definitely use the entire 4GB of RAM you install in your system.

 

Remember, it's running many applications at once. So even though each application is restricted to 3GB of virtual address space, a lot of that is typically in the pagefile, and the 4GB of RAM is being split among multiple processes.

 

The entire 4GB of RAM is being used, however. (Unless the motherboard is reserving some of it.)

[ReMark]

Then maybe it is a quirk of Windows but I've never seen a system with 4GB install that says it recognizes the full 4GB.

 

Pagefile numbers are typically what Windows chooses as most computer users have no idea what you're talking about when terms such as virtual space, pagefile and alike are used. Ask the next 10 computer users you happen to encounter to explain to you what a pagefile is and how one would go about changing the min/max values and watch as their (most of them anyway) eyes glaze over. LOL

[ReMark]

I did a search and came up with a list of 18 stores selling the Quadro4 980 XGL. Two cards were "refurbished" and list for $95 and $110. Of the new cards the lowest price was $263 and the highest price $482. I think when we bought ours the list price was $900.

[mek1951]

Thank you all, or y'all, as they say here in Texas. I checked my Radeon9200 on the CAD hardware list and it appears to be approved and supported. (Bifocal moment when I checked earlier) Something is still not right, but if I am very fortunate, I should be able to adjust ATI settings to get better (read possible) performance in CAD Architecture. Some guidance would be greatly appreciated. I am truly faking it in system and software settings. I will seek the Quadro4 980 as an upgrade. The RAM question is interesting, as I also see only 3G in System Information. I will investigate further. Thank you for the information, and particularly for the discussion of memory and page files: my eyes do glaze over, but my curiosity drives me to seek understanding. Thank you, mek1951

[sinc]

Then maybe it is a quirk of Windows but I've never seen a system with 4GB install that says it recognizes the full 4GB.

 

Oh, I see what you're talking about now. I think I knew that at one point, and then forgot it... Back in the days when we were getting XP machines, RAM was more expensive, and I typically only put 3GB of RAM in our XP systems, because I knew that there wasn't any significant difference in performance between 3GB and 4GB. Now, we've been using 64-bit OS's for a year and half, and all those 32-bit problems are fading from memory.

 

Basically, devices get mapped as memory addresses. So from the CPU's point of view, it communicates with various devices by writing to and reading from memory addresses. These memory addresses can "cover up" the RAM, making it inaccessible except as a RAM disk, unless PAE is turned on.

 

Here's what Microsoft says about PAE:

 

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEdrv.mspx

 

Of course, all that may REALLY start causing people's eyes to glaze over... Especially all that about how it's only designed for OS's that support more than 4GB - which excludes XP - but then it says PAE can be used on XP to enable DEP...

 

Yeah, lots of acronyms.

 

But all of it is rather a moot point, anyway. Because your application can only address a max of 3GB of virtual address space on a 32-bit Windows system, your application will run out of memory before it ever tries to use that much RAM.

 

And really, 32-bit OS's are dying. I would recommend to people to just not worry about this too much. Or if it worries you, move up to Win 7 x64 as soon as possible. (It's a far better OS, anyway.) Of course, if you do that, you'll also want to replace your hardware... If your machine still has an AGP slot, it's probably not a good candidate for Win 7.

 

If it's any consolation, a good CAD machine can be built for around $1500 these days, whereas it cost more like $3500 just three or four years ago. (Too bad the software prices didn't do the same thing...)