ati graphics on laptops

[David Becker]

Joel Jaeggli wrote:
> On Tue, 11 Oct 2005, David Becker wrote:
> 
>> Steffen Kluge wrote:
>>> On Tue, 2005-10-11 at 09:32 +0200, David Becker wrote:
>>>> Sorry if I sound like I'm whining over this, but the market has become
>>>> so untransparent because of these architectures.
>>>
>>> No worries, this is very interesting.
>>>
>>> Btw, "lcpci -v" reports 128MB of memory for the X300, I assume 64MB
>>> on-board + 64MB extra?
>>>
>>> Strangely, the "stolen" 64MB aren't missing in the output of "free" (as
>>> is the case with shared video memory adapters).
>>
>> It could be that 128MB reflects the graphics card's addressable memory
>> while the extra 64MB is not actually in use.
>> You'd have to run something that uses more than 64MB VRAM and then check
>> the available system memory. It's not unlikely that the hypermemory is
>> reflected differently than shared memory.
> 
> radeon x300 mobile parts are available in 3 flavors...
> 
> 32mb, 64mb, discrete... while the discrete part could potetially have no
> memory attached, it would be more common for it to have some attached.
> dell for example  sells the inspiron 6000 with x300's that have either
> no memory (64MB hypermemory they call it) or 128MB. desktop x300's with
> 256MB of ram do exist, though why you would get one is another question
> entirely.
> 

Not entirely so. The 32, 64 or discrete story comes from ATI's website.
Then there's vendors who sell them with 128MB + 128MB augmented memory.
Could be a discrete version which the notebook vendor equips with 128MB
and allows an additional 128MB system memory to be augmented, my guess
is as good as yours.

Then there's the SE versions. What does SE stand for? Shitty Edition,
what else. Great memory buses on those suggestively 'special editions'.

Then most of the notebook vendors don't mention or just don't know how
much on-board memory the x300 carries in the notebook they supply. You
can call Toshiba Global Support and have someone browse some product
database for an hour and give you remarks like 'Yeah it's dedicated
memory because it says here in the parts database that the memory is
external.'. External to what I ask? The graphics card? Or external to
the system memory. The cards are advertised as having 128MB memory. Is
that completely shared as in the 200M chipset? Or is it discretely added
by the notebook vendor? Or is it 32 on-board with 96 augmented? My guess
is beter than theirs.

Moreover, one and the same notebook model, with the same product ID may
have different graphics cards supplied during the lifetime of the model.

Then there's the 200M chipset, of which the enclosing notebook is
advertised as having an x300 graphics card. It's derived from the x300
but it generally comes without memory.

So we have 32 and 64 mb versions coming from ATI and a discrete version
which can vary in all kinds of directions. Then there's the SE editions
and finally we have the 200M chipset, not to mention the obscurity of
notebook specifications. So this work out to at least 10 different
versions, although some of the combinations may overlap.

Then there's the question of whether the vendor equips their discrete
versions with DDR, DDR2 or GDDR3 memory (if applicable). Most vendors
don't make any reference to the type of memory, so assume DDR.
Apparently only Fujitsu specificies this information, if you look hard
enough that is. Oh, and Dell is relatively sincere about the memory type
on the graphics card.

Toshiba obscures the inherently obscure x300 models. Sony does the same
with nVidia's TurboCache based cards.

It's a swamp out there.

	David