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Is the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT in the new MBP really 512MB?

A

ArchGuy

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 7, 2007
4
0
I just bought my first mac yesterday. I got the 15" MBP, with SR. Unfortunately I need to use Autocad, so I installed bootcamp 1.3 today and in the windows system profiler under the adapter ram it says 512MB. The OSX side still said 256MB.

Adapter Type GeForce 8600M GT, NVIDIA compatible
Adapter Description NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT
Adapter RAM 512.00 MB (536,870,912 bytes)

Has anybody else noticed this?
Is this a glitch?
 
Sorry to ask this but which Windows are you using? XP or Vista? I ask because people have said that BootCamp 1.3 works with Vista, but 1.3 doesn't work with XP (I'm talking about the graphics). Is your graphics running choppy or smooth?
 
I'm running XP pro, and the graphics are great. I put bootcamp 1.2 on yesterday and it was extremely choppy, but the update (1.3) today cleared up those issues.
 
It was blank yesterday with 1.2. I just assumed that it was using a generic driver to get basic functionality.
 
i have the 128, but it said on mine 128 of gpu video ram and 750ish of shared ram with the cpu ram. I've heard that the new gpu can share up to 1024 with cpu. It may be that the gpu is sharing 256 and has 256 onboard.
 
I can't find the thread, but I think I remember someone saying that the 8600M GT can access other RAM to speed things up...maybe I'm thinking of something else, but I think it has something to do with that and you can adjust how much it can access i.e. 1Gb etc.

hope this helps.
 
Hmm, about the 512, that's a really good question. On the nVidia site, they list it under 8M series.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_8600M.html

At the bottom of the page it says 512MB so I guess it's 512? Unless Apple modifies nVidia's cards before putting them in. (nVidia's site doesn't have "MacBook Pro" under their Mac section so idk).
 
the 8600M GT has dynamic memory allocation under windows and can take up to 1GB including shared memory with the system RAM - the actual physical RAM on the card is 256MB the other 256MB is system RAM that it is sharing.

we don't get that feature in OS X unfortunately.
 
This is just brilliant! I was worried about having to pay $600 CDN for the 256MB of VRAM (you get higher cpu clockspeed and 40GB extra space, but that's not such a big deal) and that if I went with the cheaper 2.2Ghz MBP, I would sorely miss the higher VRAM in the future, but that's not a problem any more!

In windows at least I'm sure you can sacrifice a few fps to get better texture quality in games, which is where the higher VRAM will be an asset, since with 128MB you can already get Aero at 1920x1200.

You learn something new everyday, eh? ;)
 
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