despite what people think, its NOT as simple as system ram minus video card ram = total. It doesnt work that precisely.
You are correct. Next time your system is at post and testing the ram out, write down the number it totals to, bet you it's more than u paid for
. Usually depending on whom actualy made the ram chip in the stick of ram there's actualy more ram than is advertised, right now i have 2 gigz of ram = 2048mb last time i booted i had (according to post) 2092mb.
Contrary to what some people were identifying earlier in the thread, Windows does not add both system and video ram together. Weather it's a dedicated video solution (actual video card u can replace) or an integrated solution. It never has and never will.
It will however DEDUCT ram for an integrated video solution. pop open one of them non gaming laptops that has integrated graphics, go in the bios, set the vid ram to.... 256 lets say, then boot windows and magicaly you have 756 meggs of ram (if u started with 1 gig).
And to prove mussels correct: on a integrated video solution, if you let the bios and/or OS handle the amount of ram to allocate for video, the ram that the OS has available and shows you will fluctuate depending on the use of the graphics, vista even has the ability to do this on the fly, xp couldn't. So lets say you're on TPU, checking your e-mail, reading an article on anandtech, and you're using your external monitor to play around with some family pictures in photoshop (if you are doing all this with integrated video... holly sh!t batman) in vista, you will see your system ram "change" as you go along (meaning you have to open system properties every time for it to re detect the amount of available memory for the system).
/end of rant AGAIN. damn coffee
