[Linux] Cool hack: video RAM as system RAM

samwichse · May 4th, 2005, 05:16 PM

You keep getting these fancier and fancier video cards with gobs (512MB now avaiable) of video memory. But how much of the time is that just sitting there?

http://kerneltrap.org/node/143

I've got a system maxed a 128 MB of ram, but with a 64 MB MX4000 PCI video card that seems like it'd be ideal for this.

Now if only I was smart enough to implement it in some way (the first-use swap idea seems to be the best).

Sam

krohnjw · May 4th, 2005, 06:46 PM

A nice idea, but I read through the kernel-trap archives and the associated thread there and can't find any discussion outside of ancient equipment and no confirmation of it working AGP or PCI really. Did I miss something?

samwichse · May 5th, 2005, 10:22 PM

Nope, it's just a cool hack. I don't know how you would make it work with a somewhat modern system.

samwichse · May 25th, 2005, 08:56 PM

A little update...

http://hedera.linuxnews.pl/_news/200...long/1445.html

I came across these step by step instructions on how to do this with an nVidia AGP video card. Note you can't use the nvidia driver to run X while doing this, you need to use the nv driver that comes with X.

It also includes how to make this into swap space. Now if only I had one of those fancy 256 or 512MB cards and not my crappy little 64MB.

Sam