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Can you believe I have almost 20 GB of RAM just for my video???

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Can you believe I have almost 20 GB of RAM just for my video??? Empty Can you believe I have almost 20 GB of RAM just for my video???

Post by Sim Architect Sat 30 May 2015, 14:20

Isn't it beautiful??? I know it's probably useless to have that much, but it's so relaxing to see...

Tea 1 Tea 1 Tea 1 Tea 1

Can you believe I have almost 20 GB of RAM just for my video??? RelgP3q
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Can you believe I have almost 20 GB of RAM just for my video??? Empty Re: Can you believe I have almost 20 GB of RAM just for my video???

Post by Guest Sat 30 May 2015, 14:54

That's uhh... good?

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Post by Sim Architect Sat 30 May 2015, 16:45

Anarchy wrote:That's uhh... good?
That's my question... It "feels" good, but I am not sure if I use it with just 3 screens (2 x Full HD plus one 1280 x 1024). Maybe I will see some difference when I render video? My 2014 desktop with a GTX 770 with 2 GB (plus whatever it would take from RAM, probably the same amount) was faster, I think, then my laptop one, but the laptop is much easier to sell, hopefully Wink

I have 32 GB of RAM, so the video card is using half of it, I guess I am not wasting it, at least. Not sure what would happen if I run a virtual machine or two in the background, if the system would allocate less RAM for the video, I will play around when I feel like it Very Happy

For now I will just drink my tea and feel good about those numbers that just look good on paper screen...


Tea 1 Tea 1
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Post by Guest Sat 30 May 2015, 17:30

Video cards use RAM?

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Post by Sim Architect Sun 31 May 2015, 02:39

Anarchy wrote:Video cards use RAM?
Yes, they do. They need RAM to store the information that you see "mirrored" from what you have on your video RAM on your screen, like a map telling which color each pixel will be (in graphic modes), or which character/color each position on your text screen will show. The video card "copies" the info from your video RAM (or your regular RAM, depending on your setup) to the screen many times per second, on each refresh.

When you want to change anything on screen, you are actually changing the info on the video RAM. But, I think Video RAM can probably be used for other stuff like data/graphics processing, when I knew a bit more of the functioning of video cards (CGA / EGA times, back in the early 90's!), you could have a few hidden "pages" in the memory, and you could tell the computer to just change the page, and an entire new screen would show much faster if your "new" screen was prepared in advance. It was also great to change between screens.

But, with new technology and "real time hardware video processing", I am not sure what's the point of having so much RAM dedicated exclusively to video unless I have 4K or higher def multiple monitors, but, hey, it's fun to see the numbers, yay!

I will look into reducing it in case I need more RAM for my system, though. Since I still got plenty and I am not doing anything heavier than playing a game (Cities Skylines, Sims 3 etc) & recording with DXtory (I'll try something "live" like twitch or Hangouts, then I will invite you all to have some live fun with me when I figure things out!), I didn't actually need more than 16 GB, but when I go play with Adobe Premiere Pro I might need it for faster video rendering (but again, since I use CUDA, maybe Adobe will use that video RAM, I will have to try and see)...

Meanwhile, let's have more tea and enjoy the beautiful numbers above (yep, as a poor guy myself, at least temporarily, those things are just great to make me a tiny bit happier about my day)!


Tea 1 Tea 1 Tea 1
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Post by Guest Sun 31 May 2015, 18:19

Sim Architect wrote:
Anarchy wrote:Video cards use RAM?
Yes, they do. They need RAM to store the information that you see "mirrored" from what you have on your video RAM on your screen, like a map telling which color each pixel will be (in graphic modes), or which character/color each position on your text screen will show. The video card "copies" the info from your video RAM (or your regular RAM, depending on your setup) to the screen many times per second, on each refresh.

When you want to change anything on screen, you are actually changing the info on the video RAM. But, I think Video RAM can probably be used for other stuff like data/graphics processing, when I knew a bit more of the functioning of video cards (CGA / EGA times, back in the early 90's!), you could have a few hidden "pages" in the memory, and you could tell the computer to just change the page, and an entire new screen would show much faster if your "new" screen was prepared in advance. It was also great to change between screens.

But, with new technology and "real time hardware video processing", I am not sure what's the point of having so much RAM dedicated exclusively to video unless I have 4K or higher def multiple monitors, but, hey, it's fun to see the numbers, yay!

I will look into reducing it in case I need more RAM for my system, though. Since I still got plenty and I am not doing anything heavier than playing a game (Cities Skylines, Sims 3 etc) & recording with DXtory (I'll try something "live" like twitch or Hangouts, then I will invite you all to have some live fun with me when I figure things out!), I didn't actually need more than 16 GB, but when I go play with Adobe Premiere Pro I might need it for faster video rendering (but again, since I use CUDA, maybe Adobe will use that video RAM, I will have to try and see)...

Meanwhile, let's have more tea and enjoy the beautiful numbers above (yep, as a poor guy myself, at least temporarily, those things are just great to make me a tiny bit happier about my day)!


Tea 1 Tea 1 Tea 1

wat

So, can my GPU use more RAM if I don't have enough VRAM?

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Post by Sim Architect Sun 31 May 2015, 21:30

Anarchy wrote:
Sim Architect wrote:
Anarchy wrote:Video cards use RAM?
Yes, they do. They need RAM to store the information that you see "mirrored" from what you have on your video RAM on your screen, like a map telling which color each pixel will be (in graphic modes), or which character/color each position on your text screen will show. The video card "copies" the info from your video RAM (or your regular RAM, depending on your setup) to the screen many times per second, on each refresh.

When you want to change anything on screen, you are actually changing the info on the video RAM. But, I think Video RAM can probably be used for other stuff like data/graphics processing, when I knew a bit more of the functioning of video cards (CGA / EGA times, back in the early 90's!), you could have a few hidden "pages" in the memory, and you could tell the computer to just change the page, and an entire new screen would show much faster if your "new" screen was prepared in advance. It was also great to change between screens.

But, with new technology and "real time hardware video processing", I am not sure what's the point of having so much RAM dedicated exclusively to video unless I have 4K or higher def multiple monitors, but, hey, it's fun to see the numbers, yay!

I will look into reducing it in case I need more RAM for my system, though. Since I still got plenty and I am not doing anything heavier than playing a game (Cities Skylines, Sims 3 etc) & recording with DXtory (I'll try something "live" like twitch or Hangouts, then I will invite you all to have some live fun with me when I figure things out!), I didn't actually need more than 16 GB, but when I go play with Adobe Premiere Pro I might need it for faster video rendering (but again, since I use CUDA, maybe Adobe will use that video RAM, I will have to try and see)...

Meanwhile, let's have more tea and enjoy the beautiful numbers above (yep, as a poor guy myself, at least temporarily, those things are just great to make me a tiny bit happier about my day)!


Tea 1 Tea 1 Tea 1

wat

So, can my GPU use more RAM if I don't have enough VRAM?
Yes, it can!! Actually, since the first PCs with Monochrome/Text Only Video Cards or Color Graphic Adapters (CGA) all the RAM that the video card would use was in the regular RAM (there's a range of addresses, even nowadays, that are still probably dedicated to that, indeed, and I was so crazy about video that I knew a few of the physical addresses by heart 20 years ago!)

I think that VRAM was introduced with the EGA (enhanced graphics adaptor) or later with the VGA Cards, since the physical addresses that were originally designed for video just weren't enough and the cards would page the info (again, not sure which had VRAM, since it was also the use to page addresses above 640K for video as well).

If you get a cheap video card (or have an on board/in processor plain Intel graphic chipset, for example) you will very likely have a very tiny VRAM and your computer will very likely use a bunch of your RAM (which can be a problem if you have 1 GB of system RAM, for example, and your video card is using 25% of it!), since it doesn't have enough for all the tasks and it can be very frustrating to not be able to set up that amount anymore (it was the standard in the BIOS before, you could set how much RAM the video card would be "allowed" to use, so you would not run out of it for your operating system and programs needs, but I guess now they want your computer using the hard drive, so it runs very slow and you are forced to spend money on a new machine, new software licenses and the manufacturers make a bunch of money, when you have time, if you own devices like Windows tablets or old notebooks/desktops, take a look at how much RAM your video card is using, you will be impressed).

Just to give you an idea, below is the minimum RAM that should be necessary, without paging, for your video card to display what you see, depending on your resolution and color depth. It grows exponentially as you increase the size, of course...


Can you believe I have almost 20 GB of RAM just for my video??? Video-ram-13-638

Tea 1 Tea 1
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Post by The_gh0stm4n Thu 11 Jun 2015, 23:32

//MOVED


Thanks for sharing this information ! Smile  I'm sure many people will find it interesting. Here's another aspect though:

In modern graphics cards, there is the distinction between "dedicated VRAM" and something like "maximum RAM". The dedicated VRAM is the amount of RAM that your card will use under normal circumstances. Should it run out of this dedicated amount, the card will then take additional amount from your regular RAM (= "shared RAM"), but to my knowledge, this amount is "fixed".

So let's say you have a GPU with 1GB of VRAM and a maximum of 3GB. So the maximum that this card could use was 3GB of RAM. But anyone correct me if I'm wrong here.
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Post by Admin Thu 11 Jun 2015, 23:46

Carlos wrote://MOVED


Thanks for sharing this information ! Smile  I'm sure many people will find it interesting. Here's another aspect though:

In modern graphics cards, there is the distinction between "dedicated VRAM" and something like "maximum RAM". The dedicated VRAM is the amount of RAM that your card will use under normal circumstances. Should it run out of this dedicated amount, the card will then take additional amount from your regular RAM (= "shared RAM"), but to my knowledge, this amount is "fixed".

So let's say you have a GPU with 1GB of VRAM and a maximum of 3GB. So the maximum that this card could use was 3GB of RAM. But anyone correct me if I'm wrong here.
I can tell you what I know from servers: fixed RAM is the guaranteed amount of RAM your server has available. There's also swap RAM, which is "extra" RAM that will only be used when it's available for your server to use. (If the other servers are not using it) The swap RAM is not guaranteed, but will only be available to use for files you use a lot (and therefore always stay in the RAM) AND when the extra RAM is actually available on the complete server.
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Post by The_gh0stm4n Fri 12 Jun 2015, 22:14

Admin wrote:I can tell you what I know from servers: fixed RAM is the guaranteed amount of RAM your server has available. There's also swap RAM, which is "extra" RAM that will only be used when it's available for your server to use. (If the other servers are not using it) The swap RAM is not guaranteed, but will only be available to use for files you use a lot (and therefore always stay in the RAM) AND when the extra RAM is actually available on the complete server.


Oh well. Very Happy  In any case, due to how these graphics cards work, it is indeed a good idea to have a little bit of additional RAM capacity in your computer, so that it can be assigned to the video RAM of your GPU, if necessary.
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Post by Sim Architect Sat 13 Jun 2015, 07:51

Carlos wrote:
Admin wrote:I can tell you what I know from servers: fixed RAM is the guaranteed amount of RAM your server has available. There's also swap RAM, which is "extra" RAM that will only be used when it's available for your server to use. (If the other servers are not using it) The swap RAM is not guaranteed, but will only be available to use for files you use a lot (and therefore always stay in the RAM) AND when the extra RAM is actually available on the complete server.


Oh well. Very Happy  In any case, due to how these graphics cards work, it is indeed a good idea to have a little bit of additional RAM capacity in your computer, so that it can be assigned to the video RAM of your GPU, if necessary.
What he said. sounds good!

Tea 4 Tea 4
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