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I have asked this question on Ask Ubuntu, and I was suggested to Upgrade RAM from most voted answers. But I got a point about my graphics card. Since, I can upgrade RAM and not graphics card, Does upgrading RAM also cause graphics memory to increase.

To clear the point: My specs are given below:
Laptop : Lenovo 3000 Y410. (bought in 2008 October)
RAM: 1 GB (DDR2)
External Graphics (Dedicated): N/A
Internal Graphics (Shared): 256 MB
Graphics Chipset: Intel GMA X3100

My Question is: If I increase my RAM to 3 GB, will it increase graphics cards share of the Memory. In other word, If graphics card shares 256 MB in 1GB RAM, will it share more, when I upgrade the RAM into 2GB or more ?

Authentic resource link will be much appreciated


I have recently known that, My chipset GMA X3100 can address 384 MB of RAM. So the question.

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  • please review the answers again. You might want to reconsider your chosen answer. May 6, 2013 at 10:12

4 Answers 4

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I am asking that, If I increase my RAM to 3 GB, will it increase my shared graphics memory ?

No.

If you look at the GMA 3000 whitepaper(pdf warning) the GMA 3000 supports up to 256MB as shared video memory.

video memory of 384 MB for Intel GMA X3000 and 256 MB for Intel GMA 3000

Adding more RAM will improve your system performance since it'll have more breathing space, but it won't increase graphics memory.

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  • Very glad to know that. Can you please tell me how can I sure, if I have "GMA 3000" or "GMA X3000" from Ubuntu. though may be off-topic
    – Anwar
    Jun 21, 2012 at 5:00
  • @AnwarShah not sure about that though.
    – Sathyajith Bhat
    Jun 21, 2012 at 19:00
  • I have upgraded My RAM and now it is showing 384 MB of RAM.
    – Anwar
    Oct 17, 2012 at 4:39
6

No it won't. The graphics card has memory that is only used on the graphics card itself. However increasing your computer's memory does increase perceived graphics performance, due to the fact that the system itself is running faster.

Looking at this article by Tom's Hardware, shows that actually the amount of memory on a card doesn't make as much of a difference as the actual bandwidth does.

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  • My graphics card has not any dedicated memory. It shares memory from RAM. That is why i asking the question, if I upgrade RAM, does that increase graphics card's share?
    – Anwar
    Jun 22, 2012 at 6:23
  • @AnwarShah I believe that Sathya's answer answers that question. Jun 22, 2012 at 6:25
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Yes, I have recently upgraded My RAM to 3GB and now the shared Graphics memory is showing 384MB or RAM, i.e there is an increase of 128MB RAM to the Graphics processing.

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  • That's basically just wasting 128MB of RAM. The performance-limiting factor on Intel GMA graphics chips is their slow path to memory. The more memory they try to access, the lower the frame rates get. I can't imagine any scenario where using more than 192MB of RAM would make any sense -- graphics would be painfully slow. May 6, 2013 at 10:13
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Yes, upgrade your computer RAM above 2GB will increase your embedded graphic total memory. since amount of RAM also share to cache, it will increase the graphic memory. its work on my laptop like this:

>>>> before upgrade ram: <<<<<

------system-------

system manufaturer : Acer

system Model : Aspire 4930

Bios : insydeH2O v1.20

Processor : Intel Core 2 Duo T5800 @2.00GHz(2 CPUs), ~2.0GHz

Memory: 1024MB RAM

page file: 1290MB used, +-800MB available

-----Display-------

device : mobile intel express chipset 4

total memory: 256mb

>>>> after upgrade ram: <<<<<

------system-------

system manufaturer : Acer

system Model : Aspire 4930

Bios : insydeH2O v1.20

Processor : Intel Core 2 Duo T5800 @2.00GHz(2 CPUs), ~2.0GHz

Memory: 3072MB RAM

page file: 1060MB used, 4939MB available

-----Display-------

device : mobile intel express chipset 4

total memory: 1309MB

and its real, my comp total memory is increase...

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