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Here's how it was explained to me by the IT guy of a
previous employer:
Your computer's BIOS doesn't particularly care what
your OS does or doesn't know how to use, and isn't
limited by the capabilities of the OS. BIOS assigns
memory to the display on bootup, and makes
whatever's left available for the OS, which doesn't
even know that there's more physical memory in the
system.
The is reflected in my oldest (very old) computer with
384Mb memory and an onboard display that uses 8Mb
of system memory. After bootup, Windows indicates
that it sees 376Mb of system memory.
What indicates that this probably isn't the case for
a separate display card that isn't integral to the
motherboard is that my newest system has 3Gb of
memory and a "turbocache" card that has 256Mb
of its own memory and uses 256Mb of system
memory, and Windows indicates that it sees 3Gb
of system memory. This suggests that Windows
is managing the allocation of system memory to
the "turbocache," which of course would mean it
can only allocate what it can see and use.
In fairness to the IT guy, he was talking specifically
about onboard display (I was asking him why I
couldn't get back that 8Mb after installing a better
display card with its own memory and disabling
the onboard display in BIOS). My mistake was
assuming that it applied to all displays that use
system memory.
Gene Kim-Eng
----- Original Message -----
From: "Edgar D' Souza" <edgar -dot- b -dot- dsouza -at- gmail -dot- com>
> Well, I expect you're absolutely right there about *ability* to use
> any addressable memory. However, I couldn't understand how the video
> card would take (or be assigned by the BIOS, since a 32-bit OS
> wouldn't know about the 4th GB) memory from only that which was unused
> by the OS, without coordinating with the OS and finding out it didn't
> recognize the 4th GB...
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