VRAM,System RAM, and Allocations

[el greenerino]

Hey guys, switcher's first post!

Are there any programs that allow me to allocate some of my system RAM into VRAM? I'm on an ibook 900 with only 32MB of VRAM and I want to run backlight while I'm computing.
Thanks for reading

BTW, is this even possible as a firmware hack? Does anyone know how?

 

[Nermal]

I'm not sure I understand your question. The backlight isn't VRAM dependent. Just press F2 and it'll get brighter.

 

[Daveman Deluxe]

Backlight is a program that lets you use a screen saver as your desktop.

I don't know how to allocate system RAM to VRAM, but if there is a way, it's almost certainly a firmware hack.

 

[arn]

Re: VRAM,System RAM, and Allocations

Originally posted by el greenerino
Hey guys, switcher's first post!

Are there any programs that allow me to allocate some of my system RAM into VRAM? I'm on an ibook 900 with only 32MB of VRAM and I want to run backlight while I'm computing.
Thanks for reading

BTW, is this even possible as a firmware hack? Does anyone know how?

Is far as I know, it's not possible.

arn

 

[Powerbook G5]

If it were possible, I wouldn't mind popping in 2 gigs of RAM and having a good 512 Megs for video RAM! I'm pretty sure it's not possible, I've never seen or heard of it done. I know there are many Intel boards that have shared memory that pulls from one large RAM pool for system, video, audio, etc. The Xbox does this, also, to a certain degree, but I am pretty sure that the computer has to be built to support this from the start. Is 32 megs RAM a decent amount to run a screen saver on your desktop? I have 8 megs RAM, and even though it's a pitiful amount, it's surprising how well my system works with it.

 

[el greenerino]

Well I just had AOL, Safari, MS Word, and iTunes running with very little slow down and I'm assuming most of the slow down came fom iTunes anyway.
I really wanted to show off the ability of having a 'moving' desktop and still being able to compute to my PC buds

 

[Derek~san]

You're really out of luck. Screen Effects are designed to be used when nothing else is being done on the system. Running it on your desktop will slow down any computer, so it wont' happen. Besides, VRAM is built into your graphics hardware, and rerouting it from the system memory isn't going to provide memory fast enough to keep up with the graphics chip.