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Date:      Tue, 06 May 2003 08:04:09 -0700
From:      Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com>
To:        Eric Anderson <anderson@centtech.com>
Cc:        Kyle Rollin <knr@xy.hartford.edu>
Subject:   Re: Real and availible RAM
Message-ID:  <3EB7CEE9.BBB2A626@mindspring.com>
References:  <3801.172.182.185.39.1052141430.squirrel@bluhayz.homeunix.org> <20030505180224.M13866@xy.hartford.edu> <3EB6A981.1030504@centtech.com> <3EB7353F.373470F2@mindspring.com> <3EB7B156.2030701@centtech.com>

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Eric Anderson wrote:
> I think you missed my point - I wasn't saying that FreeBSD is hiding
> anything, nor was I talking about the "missing 6mb problem" directly.
> You pretty much repeated my point though - "Since the BIOS is where
> FreeBSD obtains the "real memory" number" - which is what I said, that
> the BIOS takes the physical RAM, subtracts what it needs for devices
> like video cards (that "borrow" from physical main memory), then reports
> that result to any OS/Apps/etc that ask for it.  That is why my system
> doesn't show the 256Mb of memory it has in it, it shows something like
> 224Mb (32Mb is set aside for the video card)..
> 
> Unless I am totally missing your point this morning.. :)

You are.  The video memory you are talking about in this case is
accounted for by the AGP or a similar video driver.  It is not
sucked up by the BIOS.  At most, the BIOS will "eat" a few K
(usually, no more than 4K) that is unknown to the OS.

Again, you really need to read the machdep.c code, particularly
the "memsize()" function.

-- Terry



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