Card Experts. Please help with my card ATI X1270 Store display says dedicated 384MB....

I got a Gateway T-1628 notebook from BB today and the only reason I bought it was because I thought the ATI X1270 card has "dedicated" memory. I say dedicated because when I looked at the properties of the video card, it said "384" dedicated memory and upto 700 or so MB of shared memory. This was on the store display and while I don't play any video games, will this card handle my needs for Adobe photoshop and illustrator? I am afraid to open the seal on the laptop because I was not sure of the memory being dedicated but the store display showed it as dedicated. Thanks.

 

Your video card has no impact whatsoever on the performance of Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator. At all.

The memory allocated to the video card is Video Ram, which is not needed by Photoshop or Illustrator to work with images. Those programs make use of the processor and system ram.

Essentially, the only thing your video card memory will be used for if you don't play games is the tiny amount of visual data needed to actually display the Windows desktop.

 

i doubt it has 384 dedicated. 128 tops, probably, if that.

 

384 is an odd number it usually goes 128/256/512 ect. Turbo Memory or what ever where it shares the system ram is most likely where the odd number came from.

 

its an integrated card

 

Thanks guys. I thought that the card was integrated but what threw me off was the memory showing up as dedicated. If that's the case then will my current laptop which is the Acer 4620 with the T2370 CPU and 2GB of memory be fine for what I plan to use it for? The Gateway is a $100 more with 1 GB more and the AMD Turion Tl-60 CPU. The Acer is still within the return period so I can keep either one of these.

 

But remember that some "integrated" GPU's can have a bit of a dedicated storage (usually for framebuffer).

 

384 isn't that odd. It's 128+256. Yeah most cards go off stright powers of 2 for VRAM, but lots of things in computers don't, for instance 96 stream processors is 32+64. What would be really odd would be say 253 or something.

 

Wow! Marketing. OK I have a 1150, it is integrated it can have up to 256MB dedicated. Not the kind everyone wants, on board. But it is dedicated because it takes it from the RAM and does not share it with the OS. It is not discrete GPU and neither is the 1270.

 

that 384 'dedicated' v ram isn't going to help that gpu by alot.
U been misinformed.

 

Dedicated, integrated. Heck the RAM could me made out of pure gold; still wouldn't make a difference as far as performance.

 

So for all practical purposes the Acer Extensa 4620 should be very similar to the Gateway T-1628? Maybe I should return the Gateway and pocket the $100?