Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Setting Memory Limit for GMA X3100
- Thread starter Jason S.
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I did some more scrounging through the .kext files and notice a lot of items that refer to the amount of VRAM used, but figured out no way to change it. Headaches ensued...
OK, then... there must be a way to do it but it's OK for now...
And if someone knows how or discovers please post it on these forums.
Cheers!
Martin
And if someone knows how or discovers please post it on these forums.
Cheers!
Martin
Apple released a Leopard graphics update. It includes an update for GMA graphics! Let's see how it works. I'll be testing World Of Warcraft on it! i'll keep ya updated!
EDIT: Unfortunately, the WoW servers are down for a bit more (Daily Tuesday Maintenance). About 1 hour to go until I know!
I was getting an average of 20FPS in the middle of nowhere, and 9FPS in any town.
EDIT: After installing the Leopard Grahical Update, I have noticed about 5-10 FPS increase in cities, and WoW is now playable. It seems they finally came through on that!
AWESOME! So they've updated the graphics driver! That's great! It would be much better if we ourselves could do that too and increase the RAM but it's ok now. Thanks for the info!
Well....if anyone is still reading this.....I have done a lot of work, or tried to. Anyone can open up the .kext by clicking show contents, but that only shows the parts of the .kext. I cannot open up the full extention to change it because it is a system file and somehow mac stopped them from being opened. That would be the easy way to change it. The hard way would be to change the .plists and the actual file called AppleIntelGMAX3100 in the .kext. The file looks like it is encrypted, or it just might be a bunch of jibberish to keep people like us away, or it could be in the language of kernel extention. If someone who is fluent in that or could figure out how to allow anyone open the whole .kext, that would be great.
By the way, the update that mac released did nothing to help our problems, it just made it more up to date.
By the way, the update that mac released did nothing to help our problems, it just made it more up to date.
You're probably only getting the raw binary data. There are parts of that are intelligible but you're going to need to be a developer on it to change the behavior of the kernel extension.
I have all the developer tools i need and a basic idea how to use them. Again the only problem was opening the hole file. I used root access to try to open it in terminal and it still said that my permissions were denied. If i could open it i may be able to change it and possibly send it around.......only if.
Windows
I have tried very much to do anything to the driver but i still do not know what to change an all. If you ever feel like it, just download vista or windows 7 beta and partition your hard drive with bootcamp. they each allow around 300 megs of vram. Much better than than on osx.
I have tried very much to do anything to the driver but i still do not know what to change an all. If you ever feel like it, just download vista or windows 7 beta and partition your hard drive with bootcamp. they each allow around 300 megs of vram. Much better than than on osx.
I fail to see how much of an improvement addressing that additional shared RAM is going to be.
Can we resurrect this topic? I'm sure there are loads of MB users out there who would like to know how to get the most of out their GMAs. I for one definitely would, which brings me to a few questions I have that I think others could learn from.
Is there any corelation between amount of RAM and Video Performance?
E.g. say I have 2GB of RAM, if I upgrade to 4GB will I notice any significant performance increases in gaming? Photoshop? FCP rendering?
Right now I seem to be capped at 144MB of VRAM... What does VRAM affect mostly (relative to performance)?
Finally, do we know of anyone who is knowledgeable to do some poking around with regards to changing the amound of VRAM OS X uses?
Thanks in advance!
Is there any corelation between amount of RAM and Video Performance?
E.g. say I have 2GB of RAM, if I upgrade to 4GB will I notice any significant performance increases in gaming? Photoshop? FCP rendering?
Right now I seem to be capped at 144MB of VRAM... What does VRAM affect mostly (relative to performance)?
Finally, do we know of anyone who is knowledgeable to do some poking around with regards to changing the amound of VRAM OS X uses?
Thanks in advance!
No matter how much ram you put into your macbook, it will always have the same amount of vram. if you upgrade, you will run faster but not get an increase of vram. Video ram is ram which is used for video, such as video games, watching movies/ clips on the internet, hooking up to a projector or tv screen or display, pictures, ect. the only way to change the amount of vram is by changing the .kext file or using bootcamp and getting a windows operating system which ups it to around 300Mbs. if using vista.
the x3100 is in the GMA 950 series. GMA 950 is not a card but an engine that all the cards in that series use. also, whichever card has the most vram, is the best for displaying anything on your computer.
We may however get lucky (not very likely) if apple releases an update which changes the vram. but since the cpu already has this vram allocated to it, i doubt it.
the x3100 is in the GMA 950 series. GMA 950 is not a card but an engine that all the cards in that series use. also, whichever card has the most vram, is the best for displaying anything on your computer.
We may however get lucky (not very likely) if apple releases an update which changes the vram. but since the cpu already has this vram allocated to it, i doubt it.
ok, so i found out that changing the .kext is considered voiding your warranty. I still have no way of figuring out how to change the kext. i would need a special program, not to mention i have change the permissions of it, causing the computer to not be able to boot up cause it no longer has access to its graphics controller... I would just recommend getting the new windows 7 evaluation off of microsoft and install it w/ bootcamp. that will allow about the max it can go. 345 megs vram. vista allows about the same but xp only allows as much as we have, if not less.
if you continue to search for answers, good luck. also, try and become a friend of a developer. that might help.
if you continue to search for answers, good luck. also, try and become a friend of a developer. that might help.