# How does the graphics card memory affect the display and preformance?



## SARogers (Nov 27, 2004)

Could any one please explain this, thank you.


----------



## Guest (Nov 28, 2004)

Hi and welcome to the forum,

I am probablly not the best one to explain all the details of this, but I will give it a try, because I don't want you not to get an answer for your question..

Lets assume you have a video card with a DDR memory of 32 and you have a like card with a DDr memory of 256. 

As an example of those differences, Let us assume that we have a filter for water and you have to clean 512 gallons of water. One filter can clean 32 gallons a minute and the other 256 gallons a minute. Sound stupid, sure does, but carry on.

Now, we must assume that the filter with 32 gallons a minute will take 16 minutes to process the water. On the other hand the filter with 256 gallons a minute will take 2 minutes to process.

Get the picture, what you pump into a video card comes out at a relative speed to what the filter (memory) can process by the memory. The result is that rates are much faster for the card that has a 256 DDR memory. 

Crude, yep, but anyway, that is the best that I can give you. I do hope this poor analogy helps.

Know what, bet this analogy will get you some better answers from those on the forum.


----------



## Åshyr (Nov 6, 2004)

thats crap... 

not 2 put u down

youve got to look at "RAM DAC SPEEDS"

CPU SPEED , is a big one.

MOBO AGP SLOT SPEED , even thought its not a biggy.. 8x is better than 4X with high end cards and cpu specs.

if you have a 32 MB card on a 2.4ghz P4 and a 256 MB card on a 800mhz duron.

chances are you will get better performance out of the 32mb cad.

especially if the 32 mb card is a 8x agp card on a 8x agp mb..

but you are partially right.. 

your theory comes into play with "GRAPHIX PROGRAMS AND PROCCESSES"

thus.. rendering video, adding filters and effects to images and generally something that takes time.. then your theory explains it very well.

but something like GAMING when FPS and performance is demanded instanlty CPU and RAMDAC SPEEDS / MB AGP SPEED is a biggy.

i have a 1.3 duron and a FX5700 128mb card.. my friend runs a xp 3200 athlon and a gf4mx440 he gets the same frames per second on all games as i do and because of the CPU differential.. 

hope that helps.. and dont mean to slag you off. i think you forgot 2 mention your theory is for processes not direct results like GAMING =D


----------



## Guest (Nov 30, 2004)

Hi Ashyr,

All things being equal, not taking into account CPU speed, memory speed, AGP speed, bus speed, the graphics card memory analogy works. Remember, the explanation was for someone who obviously didn't have a lot of knowledge on the topic since he had no idea what that information meant. 

I would bet the things you mentioned would be words and terms he never heard of if you would bother to read his thread and then look at what you said. When explaining something, always keep it in simple terms. Think that is what I did.....and, yes, I am aware of all those things since I build computers on a regular basis. As a moderator on here for the hardware and software forums, do deal with those issues on a daily basis.

I would suggest you lighten up and look at things in the way which they were intended as a simple question with a simple answer. One must not give answers that appear to be from someone who must prove he knows what he is talking about. Sure hope that was not your intent to come across that way.

This forum is to help people and I sure hope that is reason you have decided to visit. Now, go and have a nice evening.


----------



## Celebryn (Aug 5, 2004)

I think Mark explained it well. If alittle wordy 

It is basically how fast the card draws/transfers the game info onto the monitor. The lower the memory the slower the drawing.

For the speed - Imagine watching a video of someone drawing on a piece of paper, that would be 32mb, now press the fast forward button, that would be 256mb 

As for performance, the latest games have so many effects, like reflections on water and metal, effect of weather on the game world, wind in the trees etc, all these add to the amount that the game has to draw. So the more memory the better it can handle all the extra effects.

Thats how I understand it anyway. :sayyes:


----------



## Triad (Nov 9, 2004)

Åshyr dude chill man least all our graphics cards work :winkgrin:


----------



## alottabeef4u (Dec 1, 2004)

I dont know where you guys are getting youre info but its about 90% wrong.
Ashyr is much closer than anyone else.
Video ram is identical to system ram.
More VRAM does NOT increase video processing speed.
The speed is based on the cards processor and ram SPEED.
A radeon 9200 128MB card runs the same fps as the 64MB version under equal circumstances.
The only time the ram size comes into play is when you need to process more information. think of trying to run a dozen programs on 128 mb of ram compared to 512.
Then think of running one program under the same circumstances,
You will not gain any speed running that one program if you add more ram.
Many cards with large amounts of memory have faster processors but for all practical purposes a 256mb 9200 will still be slower than a 128mb 9600.


----------



## Celebryn (Aug 5, 2004)

"The only time the ram size comes into play is when you need to process more information. think of trying to run a dozen programs on 128 mb of ram compared to 512."

In terms of graphics, would this ability to draw(proccess) the extra effects (programs) make it draw faster, therefore increasing the speed?

Isnt that similar to - 

"So the more memory the better it can handle all the extra effects." That I put?

(Just trying to clarify for myself.)

I was told that there wasnt much difference between 128MB and 256MB on the newer cards.


----------



## alottabeef4u (Dec 1, 2004)

Celebryn said:


> Isnt that similar to -
> 
> "So the more memory the better it can handle all the extra effects." That I put?
> 
> ...


The easiest way to put it is that more memory enables you increase the hardware acceleration, usually things like shadowing. Your frames per second will not increase though. Higher video memory is not useful for games games without high basic requirements(Doom3 and such). Besides the new fps engine of doom, video game graphics have not improved enough since last year. If your not playing first person shooters, you have no need of high memory cards till some sort of advances are made in RPG's and adventure games.

That's true that the differences between 128MB and 256MB in most new cards is unnoticable. If you want to play a game like Doom 3 though, which requires excessive memory just to handle the basics then a 256MB card is nice to haveso you can enable extra filters and such, although it will run perfectly fine and look good on a 128(I still would never recommend that game to anyone though).

Oh and another thing to look for in a new card is FULL directx9 compliance.
Many cards like the 9600 claim to be dx9 compliant, but they cannot enable pixelshader and a couple other extremely pretty effects.


----------



## Celebryn (Aug 5, 2004)

"If your not playing first person shooters, you have no need of high memory cards till some sort of advances are made in RPG's and adventure games."

I dont think I agree with this, there are some graphic intense games out there now like FF Online, and the new EQ2. 

Whether you play RPG or not, it doesnt mean you shouldnt get high memory. Do that, and I think you would be finding yourself shelling out for another card in the very near future, or when a new game comes out that requires the extra memory.

I would go for the best you can afford, and hopefully it will last you longer, and though a number of games. THen no matter what games you decide to play in the near future, your graphics card can play them all.

"(I still would never recommend that game to anyone though)." :sayyes:

I agree, personally, I dont like most FPS, apart from the odd Tom CLancy game, but havent played them for awhile.


----------



## alottabeef4u (Dec 1, 2004)

Celebryn said:


> "If your not playing first person shooters, you have no need of high memory cards till some sort of advances are made in RPG's and adventure games."
> 
> I dont think I agree with this, there are some graphic intense games out there now like FF Online, and the new EQ2.
> 
> ...


FF Online runs with full rendering on an MX440. There's nothing intensive about it. Even WoW runs full rendering on new low end cards, and it's brand new.

I'm not saying cheap out on a card by any means, I'm saying not to look too carefully at memory size.

Oh, and a good example of build quality over memory quantity is how the MX440 outpowered my old 9200se on games like FF Online. Usually averaged 5-6fps higher. Oh well. my 9800 pro now serves me well


----------



## Don Do Right (Oct 7, 2004)

WHAT??????​
WOW!! I was hoping to learn about video card memory in this thread. DID I??? What was the answer again, or do I need to know what the meanings of:

RAM DAC SPEEDS (got RAM & SPEED but DAC??)
MOBO AGP SLOT SPEED (got motherboard, slot & speed but DAC???)
AGP
RPG
dx9 complaint
FF Online  (a game?)

are and how they apply to a video card before understanding this thread?


----------



## alottabeef4u (Dec 1, 2004)

Don Do Right said:


> WHAT??????​
> WOW!! I was hoping to learn about video card memory in this thread. DID I??? What was the answer again, or do I need to know what the meanings of:
> 
> RAM DAC SPEEDS (got RAM & SPEED but DAC??)
> ...


Ok, in the simplest temrs I can think of

a)find out some info about the processor and ram of the video card. the one with higher speeds is going to produce your picture faster.

b)RPG=role playing game. a genre.

c)dx9 compliant - directx is the core of your multimedia dx9 is the newest version and video cards with FULL compliant can have some very beautiful texturing done with this new version. HOWEVER many cards like ATI's Radeon 9600 and nVidia's FX5200 claim dx9 compliance but cannot handle any of the pretty effects, they are NOT fully compliant.
It is always good to make sure the card handles the latest dx version.

d)ramDAC speed is the speed of the ram

e)Mobo AGP slot speed - Either 1/2/4/8x speed. 8x being the fastest, HOWEVER these are only relevent speeds and are usually visually unnoticable difference in frames per second.

f)yes FF Online is a game(an rpg) a very long, slow, frustrating, and bad game.. I hate you squaresoft.



Don Do Right said:


> WHAT??????​
> WOW!! I was hoping to learn about video card memory in this thread. DID I??? What was the answer again, or do I need to know what the meanings of:
> 
> RAM DAC SPEEDS (got RAM & SPEED but DAC??)
> ...


Ok, in the simplest temrs I can think of

a)find out some info about the processor and ram of the video card. the one with higher speeds is going to produce your picture faster. The specs on these two things are the most important things. The same card with more memory will let you draw a picture at the exact same speed, but it can draw "more" lines.

b)RPG=role playing game. a genre.

c)dx9 compliant - directx is the core of your multimedia dx9 is the newest version and video cards with FULL compliant can have some very beautiful texturing done with this new version. HOWEVER many cards like ATI's Radeon 9600 and nVidia's FX5200 claim dx9 compliance but cannot handle any of the pretty effects, they are NOT fully compliant.
It is always good to make sure the card handles the latest dx version.

d)ramDAC speed is the speed of the ram

e)Mobo AGP slot speed - Either 1/2/4/8x speed. 8x being the fastest, HOWEVER these are only relevent speeds and are usually visually unnoticable difference in frames per second.

f)yes FF Online is a game(an rpg) a very long, slow, frustrating, and bad game.. I hate you squaresoft.

Ok, I dont kniow how i just managed to double post in one post so if anyone is wondering, I blame SquareEnix/Squaresoft for that. :4-dontkno


----------



## j0hn3h (Apr 16, 2009)

:wave:
This is the simplest *and* best explaination I've found:

http://www.gpureview.com/framebuffer-article-345.html


----------



## emosun (Oct 4, 2006)

j0hn3h

This thread is over 5 years old.


----------



## Kennneth (Jul 3, 2009)

Åshyr said:


> thats crap...
> 
> not 2 put u down
> 
> ...


Sorry for the necro bump , but this thread had some answers which lead to more questions.
You spoke of slot speed 8x 4x and so on. Do the slot and card have to be compatable in speed and if so how does one tell.
Im looking at used cards for an older computer and would like to do this without frying something expensive.


----------



## emosun (Oct 4, 2006)

Yes the slot and card need to share a speed. But if your getting a card for an old machine start a new thread on it , this one should be let go.


----------

