Windows 7 PCI bus and memory ranges in Device Manager.

[RJSmith92]

Hello,

I looked in device manager on my netbook that has no dedicated graphics card (so no dedicated VRAM) and uses shared system RAM as it’s video buffer, the following memory ranges have been assigned to the on board card -

If I then change the view in device manager to ‘Resources by type’, Windows shows the following memory ranges to be on the PCI bus -

Basically all the memory ranges that have been assigned to the card are shown to be also on the PCI bus. I would understand this with a dedicated graphics card where data needs to be forwarded onto the PCI bus but I know my netbook is using system memory as the frame buffer which then I assume the card reads from there.

Do you know why these addresses are shown to be on the PCI bus, is it just because the card is a PCI device so it’s easier for Windows just to display them as if they were on that bus, and anything written to these address will still go into system memory?

I know it’s a bit of a random question but I’ve been trying to find an answer online and can’t seem to find anything.

Any help would be appreciated,

Thanks.

 

[DevilSlayerDante]

iGPUs and the northbridge used to be on the mainboard, and PCIe is "express" because it runs through the northbridge, not the southbridge like legacy PCI. Then Intel started putting the northbridge in the CPU, which made iGPUs on the CPU die also viable. So even though the GPU is built into the CPU, it's still controlled by the norrhbridge, and that's why your integrated graphics shares resources with the PCIe bus, as you suspected. Don't worry, what you're seeing on your laptop is normal.

Sorry I can't be more concise, but I hope that helps.

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