Video Card Memory?

Friend's looking into HD stuff, so he wants to know how much memory he has.
cmd.exe -> dxdiag tells him 64 MB under "Display". Since this is roughly a quarter of the 254 he needs, how much would it cost to upgrade to a more modern one? (He's running 32 XP from 2004ish)

When I looked it up on my computer, there are two Display Tabs: One for each computer. Both say 4083 MB. Does that mean 8166 total between the two, or wut...? What does "Approx. Total Memory" mean? Total monitor has/can use, or total in the computer or something else completely? I'm thoroughly confused.
It also says "Current Display Mode: 1280 by 1024 (32 bit)". What's different between a 32 and 64 bit monitor? o-o

a_@

Best way to find the real number is Start>Accessories>System Tools>System Infromatiion. Which seems youve done already. The correct amount of RAM is the "Adapter RAM".

For your computer, its telling you there is 4083 MBs allowed for each monitor, which is not correct, as even the bran new video cards out today are still packing mostly 1 GB each, and dual cards would still only be 2 GBs, or 2048 MB.

The 32 bit is most likely the color mode it is in atm.

4083 MB is most likely the total amount of memory you have installed.

If your friend's computer is from 2004 ish and has 64 MB RAM on his graphics card, then he's probably got an AGP connection instead of the now standard PCI-E.

There are no 64 bit monitors. The number represents the colour depth.

Hmmm I think we're mixing up a lot of stuff here people!

- First of all, all current monitors can only display 24bit colors, commonly referred as 16million colors -> 2^24=16.777.216.
- Why Windows says 32bit is because that was a fault in the original Windows95, which was fixed later-on to 24 bit.
- Although games / Windows Aero interface these days -do- use a virtual 32bit colordepth, that is, 24bits for colors and 8bits for visual effects.

Anyway, about the memory and "HD stuff", is that for gaming or just watching HD resolution movies?
If he's only into normal windows usage and movies in HD resolution (1080p), make sure the videocard has 1080p hardware acceleration for movies.

If your friend is into HD gaming (1920x1080) with the latest games, well... all I can say... if you want to get smooth gameplay (60fps) with high detail and full anti-aliasing, that's gonna cost a LOT (300+ dollars alone for the vid card). You might want to consider buying a console instead of spending all your money on a new graphics card + new cpu + more ram + new motherboard + new PSU just for gaming, just to see all that hardware be ancient again in 2 years time...

But if it's only for "older" games (WoW, etc) in HD resolution + full antialiasing, a 256mb card of around 150 dollars will be more then enough, without the need to upgrade your whole PC system!

Interesting URL for you: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best...,2544.html
Tom's Hardware is one of the best site's on the internet for this kind of information! One of the reasons it's running for about 10 years now.

I believe when you're playing at the native resolution of the screen, you don't need/want anti-aliasing on. You'd only want it on when you're playing lower than the monitor's native resolution or on a CRT.

When we talk about "16 bit" we're talking about colour depth. 24 bit depth is true colour, common monitors are limited to that or less. The greater the number, the more shades of colours your computer is able to produce, but you or your monitor might no be able to notice the difference or display them. The reason to have a high colour depth is so that you're able to adjust the image produced by your monitor (must like adjusting the contrast/brightness/hue in photoshop) and still have one colour differ from the other (think of it as more room to work).