Sigmarion III increase Video RAM?

Hi. I don't know if you know this, and I don't know if this is true, but if you configure atihwtbl0.txt by making a copy, disable read only, editing, and overwriting it, it seems like you can increase the video RAM from 4MB to 8MB



Edit: ExtMemCfg Value "2"to"3"

Edited by stingraze 2007-09-24 8:17 AM

I had thought the spec of the sig 3 stated 8MB vid ram anyway...

Does it make any diffrence? Have you benchmarked any videos or done any other tests to see if there is any diffrence?

Just wondered because if it makes no diffrence then I can't see much point in doing it.

Cheers

John

I would be interested in seeing some benchmark data on that too.

Can you use the DVD Catalyst recommended rating system i.e. to do it through TCPMP's benchmark on one of the DC test videos. We can generate a screen rating for it then

Infact give me 5 min I have some vid on my unit...

John

Can't rewrite the file back into the widows dir - it always says access denied....

So if someone can let me know either how to alter the file in the windows dir or how I can copy my version over the one then I will report my TCPMP benchmark results.

Thanks

John

Edited by mr-mac 2007-09-24 9:02 AM

Sorted.... Total commander wrote it....

So I did a soft re-set and re-ran the Catalyst benchamark file before and after the change and there appears to be no diffrence in performance.

The only thing I can think is it may help if you try and load an image bigger than 4MB it may be quicker moving about the image (not sure if the VRAM is just a frame buffer or can hold stuff that is off screen as well)...

On the flipside I have found a few Japanese forums and sites saying that this change moves VRAM from 4Mb to 8MB so confirming it should do exactly that. And it doesn't crash the machine so why not have it available...

Again I only did the test on the one media file which is quite small resolution so I may try some more taxing files later (and some diffrent codecs).

John

Edited by mr-mac 2007-09-24 9:19 AM

First, copy the txt file as another .txt file.

Check off Read Only.

Rewrite the specified place.

Save it as the same file as the original txt file.

Should have "rewritten" the ROM.

Tick Read Only back on?

It worked like this for me.

Actually, I tested TCMCP benchmark, didn't notice much difference. Maybe use the ATI driver?? don't know

Used the Ati driver in TCPMP for my test....

I will try a few more tests later on some very demanding media files and larger photo's (I might try and see how well picsel browser will move a very large photo file about as well)...

Mine wouldn't save back as I always got access denied (file in use type error) but Total Commander wrote it back fine.

Now if you could find a way to make the internal 4MB flash into a user accessable area then I would be over the moon...

That will be interesting, though I don't really know what the point is.

We could install some base applications (english pims and a few things like that so they don't need to be on every SD card you use with the unit)....

An Alternative to storage is at the moment it seems to load in picsel browser and other rom update files from there on a hard re-set.

If we could access this area we could change the files to some of the MUI files and SDIO updates etc... So the units can be made more usefull for English users and the updates would be like permanent changes (ie not removed by a hard re-set)...

John

ah interesting thought. But isn't video RAM a dedicated chip that is from ATI?

Cross purposes here....

There is 4Mb of Flash memory built in to the Sig3. This seperate from the 64mb system ram and 8mb VRAM....

Currently the 4MB flash seems to contain Picsel Browser and some other updated ROM files (hence why currently the Picsel browser is loaded into Ram after a hard re-set).

I think it would be good to either find a driver that would make it read write so we could store some programs in it.... Or find a way to overwrite the current contents with diffrent files (ie the MUI rom files) so they would be default on a hard re-set.

John

Maybe I'll ask a guy I know on xda-developers. He seemed to know a whole lot about extended ROM and stuff.

I met him in person, he was cool.

That would be cool....

I have looked through a lot of translated sites so far and not found anything so far but sometimes a developer type in the know will be able to point things in the correct direction.