Difference between shared memory and dedicated

So dedicated memory is straight from the card and provides more power i guess? But say if you have up to 128 shared...does that use the ram and provide the same power or weaker?

 

As you guessed, shared memory is borrowed from the system RAM. This is okay for most 2D applications, but for even the most basic 3D games this usually results in terrible performance. If you want to play any 3D-intensive games, get a system with a dedicated graphics card.

The advantage that integrated graphics with shared memory does have is that it consumes less power, so if you're not going to play games, you're probably better off with integrated graphics.

 

yes, far, far slower in games, it's not really the sharing that caus's it, it's more the memory bandwith.

You might have say 3GB per second of bandwith for the memory, normaly the CPU will have most if not all of that, but it might be only getting 1.5 or 2GB per sec of that if it's sharing it with the Graphics card too.

Your Graphics card only ends up with about 1GB per second, most newish graphics card have about 10 - 25+GB per second, so you can see how the performance is greatly reduced.

 

I've written a small guide here that can help you out as well.

 

shared ram is..as you guess...you share the ram of the system with that of the video card. you are better off with a dedicated 128mb card, with 1-2gb ram.

pb,out.