Unified Memory Sharing system ram when gpu vram is full

[Lyrithus]

It should be stated I already read this thread's best answer, (http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2475250/share-system-ram-gpu-vram.html)

and it was good information, but I already knew that. I'm currently a student getting cisco IT essentials and comptia security plus certifications.

Here is the scenario i need explained; in the event the 2GB of vram of the GPU is full, and the game settings on ultra are trying to demand more vram that isn't there, the game will either begin to drop in performance accordingly and proportionately to the demand, or it will crash.

Now in that case, is there no way to configure the system to simply respong to this by redirecting the VRAM demand when it exceeds 2GB of the GPU to the system RAM as backup storage? Even knowing the ddr3 data transfer speeds are slower, when you have 16GB, the amount of excess ram not being used by the system and OS is quite large.

 

[helpstar]

Have a look at the AGP aperture size back in time, it´s technically possible, but it was not implemented in PCIe protocol and it really wouldn´t be a chance to extend the VRAM nowadays.

The only thing to do is a graphics card with larger VRAM. Games normally don´t crash/exceed the VRAM, they detect the usable size and try to fill as much as possible (in theory). If not, the game would be crappily programmed and crash.

If the game wants more but can´t get more, it would drop in performance like you said, even while extending the Vram with normal DDR3 or DDR4 Ram, the game still would drop in performance likewise.

 

[BurgerandChips66]

The only time I recall this ever happening was with AGP or PCI (non-e) cards or those old style 'integrated' GPU's in the past.

- Not the 'APU' type of iGPU's that we have nowadays, but the GPU's that were soldered separately onto the motherboard. You could alter the amount of shared memory in the bios menu. Either set to zero or use some portion of the main system RAM shared with the GPU.

I still have a PC in the garage that works like that actually!