Why take ATI drivers sooo much memory?

[mensa]

Hi, why take ATI drivers take so much memory (RAM)?

I have installed a new Windows XP and after installing the ATI drivers there are nearly 50 MB more RAM in use after the reboot then before.

Also when I only install the .inf file for the ATI graphics card, so much memory will be used.

Why?

I only want the correct driver for my graphics card (X600), I don't need anything else like ATI Control Center or something else.

I just want, that not so much RAM will be used only for the graphic drivers.

Which drivers can I use to have enough memory free for meaningful programs?

You can test it on your system:

1. After a reboot look in your task manager how much memory is in use

2. De-install all ATI software

3. Reboot again and now look how much memory is now in use

On my machine ATI drivers are taking away about 40 MB of the RAM

[ripken204]

so? its not too bad.

[ender341]

doesn't the x600 share system memory? if so that could be the problem (but i would really think that would be taken care of at a hardware level with the os not knowing the dif., but you never know.

Personally for me i haven't noticed more mem. usage with the drivers (i have an X800)

What ver. of the drivers did you d-load and install?

[ripken204]

well no matter what the drive will take up some ram. its not too much so dont worry about it

[spazmire11]

mine are taking up about 10mb of ram so i think eather your system is haveing problems or your doing something graghics intensive in the background like runing windowsblinds, icondestop, any 3dgame minimized, random other stuff.

now if it was sharing memory he would see a PERMANET drop in system ram aka if the video card was sharing 32mb and he had only 256 windows would only see 234mb of ram because the video drive dose not handle that type of thing, thats the bios's job too manege it.

[TravisO]

50megs holy wow!

I had never thought about video drivers taking up memory, I obviously need to check this out as I have an ATI 9600AIW. I don't know what NVIDIA or ATI drivers take up but 50meg is too much for a mere driver.

If it does take up 50meg, sounds like you need to find a hacked version without that new fancy control panel crap.

Also, perhaps you should up grade to the newest drivers, which came out like 2 or 3 days ago. Generally newer means more ram, but perhaps they're tweaking their problems.

[iCEhOT]

LOL, 50 megs?? Who cares buy some more memory if it bothers you that much, memory is so cheap these days i cant believe anyone actually cares how much memory anything uses anymore. Fair enough 50 megs maybe a lot for a mere driver, and maybe explained by it sharing system memory, however, 50 megs out of 2gigs (on mine anyways) is nothing.

[suryad]

Well if you are that worried about memory being used up then go and get the omegadrivers instead of ATIs stock drivers. You dont need CCC to get all the features in the omega driver sets. Saves room on your hdd and in your RAM as well.

[gdogg]

regular ati drivers w/ control panel

take up 50MB ram on my system.

vs the built in vga drivers. In my microwinX project ati drivers take up 10MB ram, or less, so i will share this once my project is live.

Edited October 17, 2005 by gdogg

[SiMoNsAyS]

In my microwinX project ati drivers take up 10MB ram, or less, so i will share this once my project is live.

any tip now?

[suryad]

I cant wait for that shrunk down Windows to be running on almost all the machines we have at home!

[gdogg]

one thing i like about my project, is it would be perfect, when your the admin of all your home machines, cause you'd basically lock them down

making it very easy to be the admin from then on,

ati hints soon

mainly with my project, you only load the drivers when you run a game, that you'd need to

Edited October 18, 2005 by gdogg