Thinkpads Forum

Hi,

My College just give to teachers the new T61. When I look to the display panel, I saw that the graphic card Quadro NVS 140M has 512MB. Is it possible or is it a mistake? I take a look with Everest home edition and it's the same think : Quadro NVS 140M have 512MB. Strange, no? Nvedia dont show that graphic card with this amount of memory on it.

Thanks to answer me and excuse my bad English.
Guy

the 140M in the T61 uses 128MB discreet memory and up to 384MB of system memory when necessary, giving you up to 512MB total.

Additional 256 MB is a borrowed memory from the RAM, it is called shared memory. The mentioned card has 256 MB memory of it's own, rest is taken from the RAM to show it as 512 MB card.

Hi,

Thanks for those quicks answers.

It is possible to disable the share memory of this graphic card? If yes, how can I do that? It is a good think to do that?

Thanks again.
Guy

You cannot disable it. It's allocated by the system whenever it senses a need it borrows it. You can decrease it though by removing the additional RAM, which would be an efficient thing to do IMHO.

You know what's strange though?

I noticed that how much memory the GPU will "borrow" seems to depend on the drivers, or on the OS, or something.

When I loaded XP onto my T61P the graphics driver reported shared memory of something like 512 megs. I have 4 gigs of RAM.

When I used Vista 64 bit, it showed shared video memory being 2 GIGABYTES! Whoah...

If I took out 1 stick of RAM it showed 1 gig of shared memory. It appears to report the shared video memory as 1/2 whatever your total system RAM is.

So, it would seem the ratio can be changed, at least at the driver level...?

Thanks all,

I have 1 go of ram, so 512MB for the graphic card seem's to be possible. Soon, the College upgrade the memory of ram to 2go. Then, I will see the increase of amount of memory for the graphic card.

Thanks all for the informations. Have a good day.
Guy, from Montréal

hi plotin,

first of all the 140m has 128mb ram. sharing memory is VERY slow, so if you have games which needs at least 256, they will be very slow.
so it will be faster if you switch the texture details lower, than with high settings on such a card..


hey, did you read some plotins texts ? pretty awesome, isnt he ?

meditate2001 wrote:hi plotin,

first of all the 140m has 128mb ram. sharing memory is VERY slow, so if you have games which needs at least 256, they will be very slow.
so it will be faster if you switch the texture details lower, than with high settings on such a card..


hey, did you read some plotins texts ? pretty awesome, isnt he ?

Thanks for this answer.
Yes Plotin is a very special philosopher. I'm a theacher in philosophy and litterary in Montréal. It's Why I use this nick name.
Have a good day.

Hi all,

How can I know the amount of the real memory on the Graphic card? All informations with the system Windows XP or Everest Home or 3d marks shows me that the Quadro NVS 140m have 512MB on board even if it's impossible. Do you know a way for sure the right amount of memory on the grafic card?

Thanks and have a good day all.
Guy

erik wrote:the 140M in the T61 uses 128MB discreet memory and up to 384MB of system memory when necessary, giving you up to 512MB total.

Plotin wrote:How can I know the amount of the real memory on the Graphic card?

as i said above, it has 128MB physical memory and up to 384MB shared memory.   the 140M's physical memory amount can be confirmed in the latest thinkpad system reference.

quoted from this document:
"Graphics: NVIDIA® Quadro® NVS 140M, PCI Express x16, 128MB memory, TurboCache, DVI pass-through support to optional Advanced Mini Dock or Advanced Dock"

Plotin wrote:Do you know a way for sure the right amount of memory on the grafic card?

You read the specification for the card.... 128MB!

Cheers,

Bill B.

why no 256 MB option? MacBook Pro has that option.

madcow wrote:why no 256 MB option? MacBook Pro has that option.

That option is available on 15.4'' version of Thinkpad T61p.