Boost graphics using bios?

[SirSlaughter]

Okay i have been wondering, people have talked about boosting their graphics a little bit using the bios on their computers. I was wondering if this is actually possible and if it is how much would be a smart amount to give up? I only have a 128 dedicated graphics card (sucky as hell) and i was wondering if it would be a good idea to give up some of the shared memory to make it dedicated.

I am using windows 7 so i wanna know what button to hit and where to go. Can you guys help? i would like for my games to run just a bit smoother even if the graphics don't improve.

[pokeatthedevil]

I know I'm kinda late with this, but there really is nothing in BIOS you can do to allocate RAM for specifically graphics. If you had adequate cooling, you may be able to overclock your video card for better performance, but that would ruin your warranty and potentially harm your computer. I'm not typically against overclocking, but from the way you are talking, you sound like you don't overclock much.

What kind of video card do you have specifically?

[Lief]

that would ruin your warranty

Obviously, you don't know what you're talking about. Overclocking your video card doesn't void your warranty. It does make your video card run hotter, and can cause stability issues if you overclock too high though.

[RobbieThe1st]

that would ruin your warranty

Obviously, you don't know what you're talking about. Overclocking your video card doesn't void your warranty. It does make your video card run hotter, and can cause stability issues if you overclock too high though.

Actually, it does both. It will void the warranty on your video card at least, if they figure it out.

That being said, I don't think you quite understand what "dedicated" vs "shared" memory is: When it's "shared" memory, the memory /is/ exclusively taken(at least part of it) for the video card. You won't have problems with speed/running out, really. The problem, however, is that system memory(or, at least the bus between it and the GPU) is /slow/. It's cheaper, which is why it's used, but because it's a lot slower you get quite a bit less performance for anything requiring memory - i.e. any graphics.
Dedicated memory is located right next to the GPU, on the same card/module. It's actually "shared"(at least a portion of it) with the rest of the system - the CPU can access it if it needs to - but it's "dedicated" for graphics processing and accessed primarily by the GPU. It's also typically quite fast, and - more importantly - has a wider bus between it and the GPU so more data can be transferred per cycle(= a /lot/ faster total speed).

The real problem here also is the fact that the memory is a signifigant bottleneck on shared memory systems; OCing your video card may not produce as much performance gain as it should because it's waiting on the memory quite a bit. And that's sort of hard to OC.

That being said, the real solution is to simply upgrade your video card. If it's a desktop, you can just stick a card in and away you go. If it's a laptop, you'll have to buy another with a dedicated card -- Or simply buy a desktop for gaming.

[SirSlaughter]

thank you all for your replies, i guess i misunderstood what the shared versus dedicated thing was then, oh well that means i'm still learning which is alwasy good. it just means i can only get better, and to answer some questions i am using a laptop so i'll have to get a nother laptop with a dedicated card, I'm going for a sager since alienware had to mess with a good thing and ruin the m11x setup. and my graphics card is: Mobile Intel(R) 4 Series Express Chipset Family, at least i think thats the graphics card. either way it is terrible and i need a new laptop. but thanks again for the answers.