Intel med Accelerator x3100 vs. Nvidia GeForce 8400M GS for NON-GAMERS

[bullo]

Hi! I’m new to this forum. Please, I would need your opinion on this.

I just bought a HP DV9500t customized. As there was a Christmas deal, I put the NVidia GeForce 8400M GS (128MB dedicated, and up to768 shared) instead of the Intel Integrated Graphics Media Accelerator x3100.

I’m not a gamer at all (I make music), but I always knew that a dedicated card is better. The GeForce has 128MB and the X3100 has none.

When I received the computer I saw that Vista was assigning 768MB of the main RAM to the video. As usually happened in the past, I thought I could disable or assign the shared video memory in the BIOS. To my surprise, the BIOS has no setting to change that!!! Of course, the driver either!!! Then I spent the last 4 days reading forums, but many “VIDEO TECH GUYS” say different things. What I would need to know is exactly this:

Since I’m not a gamer, I would like the ‘whole’ computer to have as much performance as possible for recording apps. I have 2GB of ram, but the Video is already using 768MB (Shared) that I will never use and there is no way to disable that! The Intel X3100 has NO dedicated memory, but it takes a maximum of 384MB from the main RAM!!!

So……..Which card should I have??? Intel Med. Acceleraton X3100 or the NVidia GeForce 8400M GS???

I’m thinking of returning my laptop if needed, since it is INSANE to share 769MB out of 2 GB!!! I just want it to use the dedicated memory!!!!

Also, I read in forums that that memory is ONLY used when the dedicated memory is used up, so if I don’t play games, it won’t happen (TurboCache). I called Nvidia Technical Support and they told me that those 768MB assigned to video in the 8400M GS ARE NOT AVAILABLE for other programs. They are just assigned to video weather I play games or not!

Bottom line: I thought that spending an extra 100 bucks will give me better performance than the integrated video card, since it wouldn’t use my main RAM and would have its own graph processor. But in this case, I think I paid more money only to have less memory available fro what I really need!!!

All your opinions will be really appreciated!!!

Thanks a lot!!!

Danny Bullo

[puntoMX]

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