System ram/vram question

[cloud32187]

Hey I'm kinda a newbie here and I had a quick question about how the system ram works with vram.

I currently have a Radeon HD 4870 1gb and 2gb of system ram. I thought i had read somewhere that the video card reserves system memory. I'm not really sure how it works but i would like it if someone could explain it to me. Also do you think i might need more ram because of this? Someone told me because i use a 1920 x 1080 resolution, I'm just barely able to play demanding games. Here's my system specs just in case you need them

OS: Windows XP Pro
CPU: Q6600 @3.0
GPU: Radeon HD 4870 1gig
RAM: 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 1200(PC2 9600) Dual Channel
Resolution: 1920 X 1080

Thanks in advance

 

[Mongox]

cloud, I'm not really up on how a add-on video card will use any system RAM. This is true of built-in graphics chips, like my HD 4200, but not sure what use system RAM would be made of when your card already supplies 1GB of its own.

You can usually tell if system RAM is being used by looking at the main System page in Control Panel. If it shows your entire 2GB of RAM there, I don't think any is being used.

By answering, maybe someone with more knowledge of this will jump in.

BTW, I think 1GB is plenty of video RAM - you have a top-notch GPU there (from my standpoint!) Do you play demanding games? If so, try reducing your res and playing them and see if there's a performance difference.