Shoutbox

i hope to install vista on my laptop (acer aspire 5002), and i'd like it to run with full features. I installed beta 2 on a different partition for a few days in june. I loved it except for the fact that the aero glass didnt work! (thats probably my favorite thing in vista) I was pretty sure that it was my video card. Then I found this. Is there any way to get the glass to work with this crappy 64mb shared video card or is there any place that will upgrade it to somthing that will run it? also, will upgrading from 512mb to 1.5gb of ram (reasonably) boost performance in other ways?



i just really want the aero glass to work

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Originally posted by Supersonicdarky
will upgrading from 512mb to 1.5gb of ram (reasonably) boost performance in other ways?

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yes, it will boost perfomance, i only have 512mb in ram, 128mb graphics card and a 120gb hd but vista is running fine, except that sometimes the vista scheme is changed by the system cause it occupies more ram than vista needs for working well.
i think a 64mb video card would be fine but it has to be DirectX 9 capable in order to run vista aero

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Originally posted by DarkMe
i think a 64mb video card would be fine but it has to be DirectX 9 capable in order to run vista aero

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Originally posted by http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/capable.mspx

Support for DirectX 9 graphics with a WDDM driver, 128 MB of graphics memory (minimum)2, Pixel Shader 2.0 and 32 bits per pixel.

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edit: just noticed the footnote

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Originally posted by http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/capablefootnotes.mspx

If the GPU uses shared memory, then no additional graphics memory is required beyond the 1 GB system memory requirement; If the GPU uses dedicated memory then 128MB is required.

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so your graphic card may work

how do i find out what directx my card supports? i know from dxdiag that i have directx 9 installed tho, but not what the card supports? (also how do i find out if it supports "Pixel Shader 2.0 and 32 bits per pixel"?)

and shared memory means that it uses ram?

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Originally posted by Supersonicdarky
how do i find out what directx my card supports? i know from dxdiag that i have directx 9 installed tho, but not what the card supports?

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By far the easiest way is to look up what your chipset is (SiSM760GX) and then Google up the specifications of the chipset.

In this case, I had to look in several different places, because I couldn't easily find conclusive answers.  My final opinion is that your chipset does not meet requirements for Aero Glass.

SiS states the graphics portion of it (which they call Mirage 2) supports Direct3D 8.1 specification in hardware and 9.0 "in software", which is not a very clear answer for us.  However, further research reveals that it only supports pixel shader version 1.4, so it is not likely to work -- regardless of the amount of RAM you put in it.

TReKiE, an esteemed member of this forum, and I had some private discussions about laptops, Vista readiness and Glass, now over a year ago.  It is interesting to note that none of the models we then considered capable actually meet the final Glass requirements that are published now.  I suspect most current offerings in value, ultraportable, thin and light segments of the laptop market do not meet these requirements and will continue to not meet them for some time.   Today, I'd only expect desktop replacement and gaming laptops to actually pack the sort of 3D graphics capability Glass requires.

well then is there any way to upgrade it to this chipset which seems to support d3d 9? (and probably pixel shader 2) I just have no idea how all his works

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Originally posted by Supersonicdarky
well then is there any way to upgrade it to this chipset which seems to support d3d 9? (and probably pixel shader 2) I just have no idea how all his works

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Sure, there is -- it's called "buy a new laptop".    Unfortunately, laptops pretty much are what they are.  You can usually add more RAM or get a bigger hard drive, but that is it. 

There has been some effort, mostly from Nvidia, to create a standartized user-upgradable graphics card for laptops, but that hasn't quite caught on yet.  It is possible that you will be able to do that with laptops you might buy a few years from now.

i bought this laptop is february, i'm keeping it for atleast another year. O well, when i get ram upgrade i'll post if it worked or not.

and, if the video card is shared memory, can u select the amount of ram it uses for it self?

You can download the Vista Upgrade Advisor that'll tell you exactly what you need to upgrade http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/up...visor/default.mspx