What is dedicated graphics memory(n00b in need of assistance)

I ordered a HP pavillion dv 9580. It has a Nvidia 8600 graphics card. It says "Up to 1023 MB total graphics memory with 256 MB dedicated". What does that mean.

pleaaaaaaaaase help me

 

256 is built onto the card so it is in addition to say the 2gb of system ram your computer has

 

The card has 256MB of actual, physical memory on it. The card is able to steal 767 MB of system (main memory) RAM for a grand total of 1023MB.

 

And the more MB it "steals" the better it will perform for games and applications, right?

 

not really its at least 10x better to have 384 mb dedicated than stealing any amount of ram from the system.
thats because its very slow.
i think its like when ram borrows space from harddrive which is aprroximatelly 100 times slower. Anyway the gpu you have cant really use more than 256mb ram effectively you will need a high end card for that.

 

384MB? Is that off a random number generator??

 

no i think theres a pattern...3.....3x2+2 is 8.....8/2 is four

 

Damn, It randomely changes multipliers? That's a pretty advanced random number generator.

 

wtf?

its off the binary sequence.

2 4 8 16 32 64 128 256 512 ....

128+256= you guessed it 384. Almost every computer part has some kind of reference to that chain.

It probebly has a 256MB stick of RAM, and a 128MB stick.

 

I know, but why would you reference such an odd combination. I have never heard of such a combination and for good reason.

Edit: Infact even googling for 384MB dedicated VRAM turns up nothing. Maybe he referenced the G80's memory interface by mistake??

 

more graphics ram is generally better, but there is no set amount best for any one situation as it all depends on:
-size of textures
-resolution being rendered
-software application


Frankly 256MB of dedicated video ram sometimes performs almost as well and other times performs BETTER than 512MB depending on the application.

The 8600GT is spec'd for 256-512MB of dedicated... a 256Mb 8600 will perform almost as well as a 512MB in almost every situation. The only time it won't is when the 256MB isn't enough to cover its needs and it needs to steal windows RAM to get the job done. This is most likely when operating in higher resolutions which the 8600 is not really designed for...

 

Is additional RAM beneficial is the GPU is using shared system memory?

If you have 4GB, and 32-bit Vista can only use 3GB, can't the GPU use some of the additional 1GB?

 

Actually, the G84m chip (the 8600m series) uses turbo cache (the "stealing" of system ram) very effectively, to the point that it's performance at higher resolutions and settings can actually double when going from 2gb of RAM to 3gb of RAM in Vista.

I believe the GPU shared RAM is taken from what vista can see. The dedicated GPU RAM does include some of that vanished 1GB though.

 

If 64-bit Vista can see the additional RAM, what's the downside of using it? Is it because certain programs and hardware drivers are incompatible? When will it be a good time to switch to a 64-bit OS? Next year? 2 years?

 

Yes, the driver support for 64-bit Vista is not quite good enough for it to be recommended to casual users. If you're comfortable tracking down your own drivers, then there's not too much of a downside, unless you use older programs which may not be compatible at all.

Also, 4gb of RAM is almost never necessary, or even useful, so 32-bit Vista is fine for the vast majority of users.

 

So 3GB of RAM is the most any gamer would ever need in the next 3-4 years, even with a 64-bit OS?

 

For gaming, with a dedicated graphics card, 3GB should be plenty on Vista. If in the next 3-4 years you upgrade to an OS which is more RAM hungry than Vista, then you may need to upgrade.

 

of course 384 ram does not exist but that card would hardly be able to use 512 while it is very able to use more than 256 ram so for this time yes it is a random number