Dedicated vs. Shared 200M, is there a practical difference?

When it comes down to it, I know the technical reasons why the dedicated 200M variant is better than it's shared memory sibling. It's approximately 20% faster and doesn't rob the system of memory bandwidth.

However, I also know that even with this speed boost the dedicated memory version is no speed demon. I'd like to know, for practical purposes, will I miss the performance boost provided by the dedicated memory version of the 200M? I do all kinds of stuff with PC's and will eventually push the machines limits. I'm just wanting to know if there are practical situations in which the boost in performance will help.

My other main concern is stability. Is the dedicated version more stable since it doesn't have to intrude on the main memory segment?

Regards,

Mike

 

I think those are good questions. I will post my limited experience with a Compaq that had a shared 128mb X200M rig.

The video portion of the laptop was very good. I played Unreal Tournament 2004 on it for an hour or so - in 800x600 at highest graphic settings (all maxed out) - and the card handled UT2k4 just fine.

I'm sure the majority of people here will tell you, dedicated graphics memory is the way to go (and it is), but I'm sure that everyones mileage varies depending on the specific uses of the laptop, applications, etc.

PERSONALLY: I would want dedicated video memory - if that option was available to me, that being said - I didn't see much wrong with the X200M 128mb shared.

Just trying to share my $0.02 worth
GOOD LUCK.

 

Why would HP add the shared memory to the dedicated memory if there wasn't a use or purpose for it?
There has to be a reason? Sales gimic an actual use for the combination?
I bought the notebook thinking that was a nice feature, but since heard that it is a waste.
Has anyone asked HP themselves?

 

Having dedicated memory means the GPU doesn't carve out a 128MB chunk of main memory. If your typical retail configuration has 512MB of main memory, that's a problem. Also, dedicated memory helps quite a bit at higher resolutions, though it's less critical on AMD machines than on Intel thanks to AMD's HyperTransport.

RAM is cheap, so you might as well have the 128MB dedicated, unless your motherboard is so crowded that you don't have room as may be the case in a thin-and-light.

 

Well, I have 1.5GB of memory, would this help if ran both the 128 dedicated AND 128 shared memory?

 

I would also guess that dedicated video RAM is faster than system RAM.

 

Dedicated memory is faster than shared, yes. But since the GPU core is the same, dedicated memory is of limited help. Insist on dedicated when given the choice since it's inexpensive.

Running 128M dedicated+128MB shared will help in a few games that really, really need RAM for texture buffering. Otherwise it's a waste.

 

What about if I bump the memory from 1.5GB to 2GB and then run 128 dedicated memory & 128 shared memory? Or does it matter at all?

 

Memory is just a part of the whole pitcure. You have the controlers, procssors, etc. dedicated this - shared that = blah

check out video cards 101, a good read (granted the web page not focused on laptop cards, rather desktop, still the same aspect none the less) - http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/games/learnmore/videocard101.mspx

also - http://www.devhardware.com/c/a/Video-Cards/Video-Hardware-Part-3/2/

 

Most of the time it doesn't matter. It's a nice marketing bullet point.