What is Shared Video Memory?
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Shared Video Memory, Shared video memory: On lower end systems, the video is integrated into the motherboard. The video controller uses a certain amount of 'shared RAM' for video memory. The shared ram (usually 8 mb) is taken away from main system RAM. Thus, on a 64 Mb system, if the integrated controller uses '8 Mb shared video RAM', the main system only uses 56 Mb of RAM, and this is the number you'll see when checking for the memory. When you go out to purchase a computer, some models specify that they have a certain amount of megabytes of memory, and they may have a videocard that supports a certain amount of *shared* memory. This means that when the videocard is in use (all the time!), especially in higher display modes, it will take some of the memorynormally dedicated to other computing activities and use it as its own. Thus, if you buy a laptop with 32 megs of memoryand 8 megs of shared memoryand you frequently use a high display pixel depth and/or number of colors, you may actually only have 24 megs of physical memoryavailable left to your computer. While this may be fine for some people, if you have more money, you may want to go with a computer that has video memory dedicated to the video card, saving your physical memoryfor other uses. Some systems have a modem or videocard that uses "shared memory ". This means that the memory for the accessory is taken from the system RAM. A computer with 64 meg that uses 32 meg of shared video memory will have a gorgeous display but run poorly because Windows only has 32 meg to use I would never buy a machine with shared video memory because 20% performance loss is not worth the small price savings realized. |
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