I'm wondering if a 1GB Video Card vs 512MB video card somehow reduces available memory in a windows xp 32-bit environment. I've read this somewhere and I'm trying to decide if I should upgrade to a 512MB card rather than 894MB or 1GB so my available RAM to fs9 isn't reduced too much...Any comments?

I'm wondering if a 1GB Video Card vs 512MB video card somehow reduces available memory in a windows xp 32-bit environment.

Makes no sense whatsoever. :(

I'm wondering if a 1GB Video Card vs 512MB video card somehow reduces available memory in a windows xp 32-bit environment. I've read this somewhere and I'm trying to decide if I should upgrade to a 512MB card rather than 894MB or 1GB so my available RAM to fs9 isn't reduced too much...Any comments?

you are mixing up virtual address space and physical memoryLarger memory video cards need an expanded address space in a 32bit OS. Usually this is seen as a "OUT OF MEMORY" error when running FSX or other games (FS9 too) which are very memory intensive with a large memory video adapterThe fix is to use the boot.ini file switches in order to allow the OS more address space to work with in conjunction with the larger video adapter memory amountSee HOW TO PROPERLY TUNE VIRTUAL ADDRESS SPACE IN WINDOWS (x32) FOR OUT OF MEMORY ERRORS listed in this threadhttp://www.simforums.com/forums/forum_posts.asp?TID=2904164bit OS's do not need that changeolder/cheaper video cards (and onboard adapters) have been known to use a shared memory with the physical memory of the computer.. the card you are pointing to would not do that.and it is important to note.. you DO NOT need to make any changes to the OS if you do not see any out of memory error problems!As a side note, it is possible to make FS9 use more than 2GB of physical memory.. By default it will only use a max of 2GB and that can be expanded in a 32 or 64bit OS,... see this posthttp://www.simforums.com/forums/forum_post...D=174659#174659