seeking clairification on graphics cards

i've been looking at the nvidia website as well as the ati website. i'm just looking around at the geforce go and ati mobility radeon. it is quite possible that i've gone blind in some way as i don't seem to be able to find the vram for any of the graphics cards. all i want is to know:

1. does the graphics card have turbocache/hypermemory?
2. how much dedicated ram does the graphics card have?

are ati an nvidia leaving these out or have i just ignored it as i browsed through the range?

i would be grateful if anyone here can clarify this for me on the mobility radeon series and the geforce go

 

some cards have a few models, with different ammounts of deticated and shared ram. which models are you wondering about?

 

It should say on the laptops manufacturors website.

 

It depends on the models. x1400 and lower for ATI and 7400 and lower (by lower, it means just the second digit, first digit denotes generation, not performance) have hypermemory/turbocache and if you're a gamer, avoid them at all costs, not because they're bad but because they take memory from the main system. The x1600 and 7600 come in 128MB, 256 MB and sometimes in 512MB, mind that those with 512MB may have hypermemory (256MB dedicated/256MB shared seen on an Asus, I think, maybe it was an Acer). The high-ends usually come with 256 or 512 MB, those are the x1800, 7800, 7800 GTX, 7900 GS, 7900 GTX; but to what I know, only the 7900 GTX comes with 512 MB.

 

x1300/x1400 and go7300/go7400

 

Those have hypermemory/turbocache. Rule of thumb is half of the VRAM advertised is dedicated and the other half is shared, e.g. 128 MB VRAM means 64MB dedicated / 64MB shared from system.

 

Usually, sometimes its all dedicated, sometimes more of it is hypermemory. If in doubt contact the manufacturer or (if you trust them) the shop.

 

if this is the case for gamers, and office work would be ok with integrated graphics, what is turbocache/hypermemory ideal for?

 

I guess casual gamers gearing towards office work

 

While generally hypermemory/turbocache are generally half dedicated and have shared, I have heard of a few notebooks having 256 cards with like 64 dedicated and 192 shared (maybe the 7300, not sure). You really should just try to find out from the manufacturer, but sometimes they don't like to advertise facts like those, so you may have to call them.

 

notebook, so far I havnt seen anyone actually advertise the fact that current drivers increase the amount of system ram the card can use so that total memory is 256 megs.

Hyper/turbo is just fine for casual/mid end gaming. Before with AGP based video solutions, bus speed was so slow that even mid range performance wasnt possible. Current PCI-E based solutions have ATLEAST 64 megs onboard wich was enough for most games PRE-Doom3/DX9 era. Also the PCI-E bus combined with todays fast memory speeds (most laptop with shared memory solutions ran memory at 100mhz DDR, at best they were running pc2700 memory. A base core duo system on the other hand runs its memory at a wopping 566mhz) actually provides acceptable performance for running many dx9 games like doom3/quake4, half life2.

IMO for what your paying for, you get good enough results. if you want high end gaming, then you will need to pay for it.

 

Lol, even dual channel DDRII 6400 is not enough. Do I really HAVE to resurect my age old post?

 

this a6jc apparently has the go7300 with 256mb dedicated - i'm assuming this is wrong?

 

yep thats wrong. I have the A6Jc and according to everest its 128 dedicated and the rest is TC - 256 total for 512MB system RAM and 512 total for 1GB system RAM.

 

I wouldn't think the whole 256 are dedicated. As a previous poster said, it's 64 dedicated / 192 shared .... either that or 128/128. Even if it has the whole 256 dedicated which I find highly doubtful, it won't be able to use them due to the 64-bit bus width.