Controlling bootup Ryzen (Picasso) integrated graphics hardware reserved memory(Acer Aspire 5 A515-4

RenoRich

I recently purchased an Acer Aspire 5 A515-43 (A515-43-R19L).

The CPU is a AMD Ryzen 3 (Picasso) 12nm, which has AMD Radeon Vega 3 (integrated) Graphics.

I noticed that after booting into Windows 10, "hardware reserved" RAM is 573 MB. Likely 512MB or so of this is to support the integrated graphics feature.

I would like to lower the amount of reserved RAM down to, say, 64MB (this article, <www.techspot.com/article/1578-amd-raven-ridge-reserved-memory-explainer/>, suggested that number for Raven Ridge, and I'm hoping that Picasso is not much different).

So far, I have not seen a way to control integrated graphics reserved RAM via BIOS. Does anyone out there know how to accomplish this via BIOS, or other method?

TIA.

PS
I faced this same issue when I bought a Huawei Matebook D 14 with a AMD Ryzen 5 2500U Raven Ridge Processor. It gobbled up an astonishing 1GB RAM out of 8GB available! I never found a way to reduce the amount of reserved memory, so I lived with the remaining 7GB RAM.

MaClane

Good evening RenoRich !

In today's handsets and Bios, who controls the amount of RAM allocated is the system itself.
This value will often depend on what power plan you are using, the installed updates, and the drivers.

There are some methods of change.
However it usually end up causing errors, BSOD's, among others.

JackE

Most folks want more shared. The BIOS usually seems to reserve about 10% of total RAM as shared. So while your dual-channel experiment will likely succeed, you'll also likely see the same thing --- less than 7GB available for other stuff. Unless the firmware has the verbose option to change this amount, we're in the realm of bios mods which are frowned upon by the forum mods.   Jack E/NJ  

RenoRich

Installed a matching 4GB RAM stick in my Acer Aspire 5 A515-43. I know have 8GB total. I noticed that after booting into Windows 10, "hardware reserved" RAM is now 2.1 GB. Ouch!

I do not like these locked-down BIOS configurations...

JackE

Yes but if non-graphics system demands exceed 6GB, it takes priority over any graphics-intensive demands for the shared 2 GB.  Don't fret over this. The BIOS firmware will do just fine in managing this shared RAM and setting priorities on where it's needed most at any one instant. Jack E/NJ 

RenoRich

> if non-graphics system demands exceed 6GB, it takes priority over any graphics-intensive demands for the shared 2 GB.

@Jackietools
(1) My thanks for monitoring this forum! 
(2) 
> if non-graphics system demands exceed 6GB, it takes priority over any graphics-intensive demands for the shared 2 GB.
Do you have a link/reference for your claim? So "shared" is a more accurate description than "hardware reserved" within the AMD Radeon Vega 3 (integrated) Graphics framework? If you are right, then there is indeed far less reason for me to fret.

JackE

Google keywords 'reduce shared vram' and follow the first few hits/links till you get convinced or tired. Unless a BIOS firmware option exists, the amount available for sharing with the integrated graphics is a percentage of total RAM and prioritized as mentioned. But it'll  never be reduced to zero cuz then there'd be no video.   Jack E/NJ

RenoRich

JackE said:

Google keywords 'reduce shared vram' and follow the first few hits/links till you get convinced or tired. Unless a BIOS firmware option exists, the amount available for sharing with the integrated graphics is a percentage of total RAM and prioritized as mentioned. But it'll  never be reduced to zero cuz then there'd be no video.   Jack E/NJ

I'm on it!

RenoRich

Alas, "'reduce shared vram" did not yield any credible results. The results were about other form factors (i.e. desktop), other O/S (i.e. Windows 7) , or other hardware (i.e. Intel). Trying to focus the search (e.g. reduce "shared vram" "ryzen" laptop) only produced 206 hits, none of which were helpful.

> if non-graphics system demands exceed 6GB, it takes priority over any graphics-intensive demands for the shared 2 GB.
Alternatively, I believe I had evidence to disprove this claim. I ran Prime95 on the machine and at no point did Windows 10 make use of the 2.1 GB of "hardware reserved" RAM. Windows 10 prefers to slow the machine down by an order of magnitude by aggressively paging while leaving the 2.1GB untouched.

JackE

Still not tired yet? Or still convinced you can bypass the BIOS firmware without modding it. Try some other freeware or trial version testers.  Most if not all the claimed results you get from them are worth about as much as you paid for downloading and installing them.      Jack E/NJ

RenoRich

> convinced you can bypass the BIOS firmware without modding it
I was never convinced. I was merely asking this community if they knew of way to do it. I have not seen a crisp reference to any solution, and so will move (actually have moved) to another forum.

Thank you for your responses.

JackE

Good luck. Jack E/NJ