[SOLVED] RAM vs VRAM vs PAGING FILE

[VickyTech]

My laptop has 4gb ram and amd radeon r4 integrated graphics.
In graphics section it shows dedicated video memory 512MB system shared memory 2GB
Totally 2.5GB. Virtual memory is around 1.4GB. Shared system memory comes from the RAM but where does this dedicated video memory comes from?
And what is VRAM ? Some people are saying that it is GPU related one and some are saying that it is the size of paging file.
Can anyone clarify this please ?

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Ram = your 4gb System ram
Vram = dedicated ram on your GPU (in this case 512mb)
Shared ram = System ram, minus shared allocation for your GPU.
Swapfile/pagefile = Storage allocated on your SSD/HDD if your system ram fills up (data has no where to go, so it goes to your drives, which is really slow)

 

[drea.drechsler]

My laptop has 4gb ram and amd radeon r4 integrated graphics.
In graphics section it shows dedicated video memory 512MB system shared memory 2GB
Totally 2.5GB. Virtual memory is around 1.4GB. Shared system memory comes from the RAM but where does this dedicated video memory comes from?
And what is VRAM ? Some people are saying that it is GPU related one and some are saying that it is the size of paging file.
Can anyone clarify this please ?

A bit of extra info may help...

Because you have a laptop with integrated graphics the VRAM is actually a portion of the same RAM that makes up the 4gb total system memory, that's the "dedicated 512Mb system memory/shared 2Gb, Total 2.5Gb" part. That usually means it's always using 512Mb of your 4GB RAM for 2D desktop-type apps and then allocates an (up to) additional 2GB when needed, as to run 3D games or apps.

So, it could allocate a total of 2.5Gb for the iGPU depending on things like how big the display is (4K is not really an option in your case, 720p is probably max and not really viable even then) to play a game and then leave only 1.5Gb for the CPU to do it's thing. When that happens, of course, the system will frequently find itself starved for memory so it starts to use Virtual Memory. That is actually hard drive space that it can move parts (called pages) of lesser used memory out to in order to keep operating. It will bring those pages back in to main memory when needed. But that's very, very, very laggy... i mean worse than slide-show gaming laggy.

 

[VickyTech]

A bit of extra info may help...

Because you have a laptop with integrated graphics the VRAM is actually a portion of the same RAM that makes up the 4gb total system memory, that's the "dedicated 512Mb system memory/shared 2Gb, Total 2.5Gb" part. That usually means it's always using 512Mb of your 4GB RAM for 2D desktop-type apps and then allocates an (up to) additional 2GB when needed, as to run 3D games or apps.

So, it could allocate a total of 2.5Gb for the iGPU depending on things like how big the display is (4K is not really an option in your case, 720p is probably max and not really viable even then) to play a game and then leave only 1.5Gb for the CPU to do it's thing. When that happens, of course, the system will frequently find itself starved for memory so it starts to use Virtual Memory. That is actually hard drive space that it can move parts (called pages) of lesser used memory out to in order to keep operating. It will bring those pages back in to main memory when needed. But that's very, very, very laggy... i mean worse than slide-show gaming laggy.

So my GPU has no memory...both Dedicated and shared memory come from my RAM ....VRAM and virtual memory are two different things. This is what I understood.
So in case if I upgrade my ram from 4 to 8GB how to increase the shared system memory?

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Often you are limited to the amount of shared ram you can use. Typically it's maxed at 2gbs.

Adding more ram, will help your system, but not so much in terms of more GPU performance.

 

[drea.drechsler]

So my GPU has no memory...both Dedicated and shared memory come from my RAM ....VRAM and virtual memory are two different things. This is what I understood.
So in case if I upgrade my ram from 4 to 8GB how to increase the shared system memory?

It would increase the shared memory pool, but as Keith12 said it probably won't help the iGPU. But it would definitely help the CPU by it not hitting Virtual Memory so often. 4Gb is really not enough for modern Windows even without an iGPU taking part of it so if you can upgrade without spending too much I'd suggest it, by all means.

 

[VickyTech]

Often you are limited to the amount of shared ram you can use. Typically it's maxed at 2gbs.

Adding more ram, will help your system, but not so much in terms of more GPU performance.

Thank you for your reply !
Is there any other way to increase the VRAM or the dedicated memory. Because the gpu often hits 100% while playing a game even with medium settings and the image quality is not good. If there is a way it would be helpful.

 

[VickyTech]

It would increase the shared memory pool, but as Keith12 said it probably won't help the iGPU. But it would definitely help the CPU by it not hitting Virtual Memory so often. 4Gb is really not enough for modern Windows even without an iGPU taking part of it so if you can upgrade without spending too much I'd suggest it, by all means.

Thanks for ur reply !
Are you saying that it will increase the shared memory automatically after upgrading ram ?
And yes ! as you said 4GB ram now im using is barely enough to run any game or softwares without lag so thats why im planning to upgrade the memory.

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Thank you for your reply !
Is there any other way to increase the VRAM or the dedicated memory. Because the gpu often hits 100% while playing a game even with medium settings and the image quality is not good. If there is a way it would be helpful.

Sadly, no. The 100% usage is just the limitation of the iGPU in the laptop. There is nothing you can do to increase the performance. Well, that's not exactly accurate. It is possible to OC the clock-speed of the iGPU, but it's very tricky, not worth the hassle, and can be really unstable. It's not worth considering.

The only other option to increase your GPU performance is to use an eGPU. Which is more or less an external add-on dedicated GPU. They are very expensive, and if your laptop is not high end (ish) it most likely wouldn't provide enough CPU grunt to power the GPU effectively, which would lead to underwhelming performance to say the least.

If you want more gaming prowess, you will need either a new laptop, with a decent GPU. Or build a desktop for half the price, that would give you the results you seek.

 

[Karadjgne]

With an integrated gpu (igpu) you only have 1 set of memory. Ram. That's it. Vram is memory that's found on an actual graphics card, video ram.

Since everything, cpu and igpu are sharing the system ram, the only way to increase ability is to increase the system ram. Since the igpu also uses system ram, the best option is to also use the fastest ram you can get that is supported by the motherboard and cpu. That info will be found in the specifications either online or in your user manual.

Most times just swapping your storage from a hdd to an ssd is a huge performance gain, especially if pagefile access is involved as an SSD is about 5x faster than a hdd and more closely related to system ram.

 

[VickyTech]

With an integrated gpu (igpu) you only have 1 set of memory. Ram. That's it. Vram is memory that's found on an actual graphics card, video ram.

Since everything, cpu and igpu are sharing the system ram, the only way to increase ability is to increase the system ram. Since the igpu also uses system ram, the best option is to also use the fastest ram you can get that is supported by the motherboard and cpu. That info will be found in the specifications either online or in your user manual.

Most times just swapping your storage from a hdd to an ssd is a huge performance gain, especially if pagefile access is involved as an SSD is about 5x faster than a hdd and more closely related to system ram.

The next thing im gonna do after installing ram is to install an ssd.
I have an empty DVD drive slot and im planning to install a 120GB ssd in that and use it only for C drive. Is that enough ?

 

[drea.drechsler]

Thanks for ur reply !
Are you saying that it will increase the shared memory automatically after upgrading ram ?
And yes ! as you said 4GB ram now im using is barely enough to run any game or softwares without lag so thats why im planning to upgrade the memory.

4Gb is really not very much memory even if you had a discrete GPU with all it's VRAM local to the card and not using any of system memory. So increasing system memory will help in some instances. It depends entirely on how much system memory paging is going on for the CPU while gaming. If the hard drive light is constantly blinking while in game then that's a clue.

Another thing to help is not trying to game on higher resolutions. Resolutions absolutely out are 4K, 1440 and even 1080p would be difficult which, sadly, is the most popular. Probably even the native resolution of your laptop screen is going to be an excessive load. So try to find a balance of low-resolution and in-game settings is about the best you can do.