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I purchased a desktop two years back asking the vendor to install a "1 GB" graphics card. The card which is installed in my system is Nvidia 9400 GT, and the NVIDIA website provides the following technical specifications:

Memory Specs -> Standard Memory Config = 512MB

The DirectX diagnostics (dxdiag) give the following details:

      Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 9400 GT
   Manufacturer: NVIDIA
      Chip type: GeForce 9400 GT
       DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
     Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0641&SUBSYS_40091682&REV_A1
 Display Memory: 1775 MB

Dedicated Memory: 1009 MB Shared Memory: 765 MB

I am pretty confused now as to what the "real" memory is - is it 1GB? 512MB? Does the words "Integrated RAMDAC" mean the display shares memory with the RAM and the total is 1GB?

Can someone please help explain this?

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It looks like it is a 1GB card. How much memory does your system have? – Ramhound Feb 6 at 14:13
Integrated RAMDAC= Random Access Memory Digital-to-Analog Converter. It's a piece of hardware which produces analog signal which drives analog monitors. Integrated in this case should not be a problem. Integrated RAMDACs have been the norm for quite a while. – AndrejaKo Feb 6 at 14:42
Thanks AndrejaKo. Ramhound, my system has a 2GB RAM, excluding the Graphics Card - which I was hoping will be 1GB additional when used. – Mozan Sykol Feb 6 at 15:04
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2 Answers

up vote 5 down vote accepted

download this Tool GPU-Z and run it. It will read all the data of your GPU and show you your memory.

enter image description here

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Confirmed that memory size is 1024MB. Not sure why the NVIDIA website says otherwise. – Mozan Sykol Feb 6 at 15:08
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up vote 2 down vote

The way I see it : Dedicated Memory: 1009 MB - this is the onboard memory on the video card itself Shared Memory: 765 MB - This is system memory (plugged into motherboard) the card can use along with its own dedicated onboard ram.

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