Wishmaker
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 Din: Luxembourg/Guildford
Inregistrat: acum 16 ani
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Shared vs. Dedicat ...
Both shared and dedicated memory have their advantages and drawbacks. You need to decide which one is best for you.
To understand shared memory, you first need to know what memory is. Memory usually refers to Random Access Memory, or RAM. When you run programs or applications on your computer, the code of those applications is loaded into the RAM, from where it is executed. The information stored in the RAM can be accessed in any random order (as opposed to a sequential access), hence the code in the RAM can be executed quickly and when required, making RAM perfect for this task.
Your monitor/LCD display needs to be instructed how to display what you see on the screen. This information is placed by the operating system and the applications you run in a similar form of random quick access memory. This could be the computer’s all-purpose system RAM, or RAM that has been specifically allotted to this task, such as a video/graphics card’s built in memory. In the latter case, this memory would be reserved solely for the task of screen display, and would be isolated from the memory available for other tasks. This is known as dedicated memory. But in the former case, you might see sharing of memory between the display and the computer applications.
In shared memory for video, the memory used for displaying the contents on the screen, will be part of the memory used by the computer for other tasks. In other words, your video RAM will actually be a part of the all-purpose system RAM. Thus, if your computer has a system RAM of 64 MB, and the current monitor settings (screensize, pixels per inch etc) require 8 MB of memory to function correctly, then your operating system and applications will have only 56 MB of RAM available to them. The other 8 MB of RAM is shared with the computer’s display, and since the display is always on, it’s never available for anything but video/display. This means the programs and applications you run now have 8MB less of memory in which to operate at all times.
The advantage of shared RAM is that it costs less than dedicated video RAM. If you aren’t going to need a lot of memory, and you don’t really want to spend much money on it, then shared RAM would be a perfectly good option. Also if you plan to buy a lot of RAM, more than you need for your computer activities, then it doesn’t hurt to share some with the video. (If you get 1 GB of memory, then sharing 128 MB on display would usually be fine, since there would be 872 MB left for other processes).
There are disadvantages too that you should know of. Like I mentioned before, the RAM assigned to display will be constantly used by the display, thus it isn’t really shared but rather lost to the video. You must make sure there will always be enough left for running other applications. But in some cases the opposite may occur. There may not be enough RAM shared with the video, although you have more system RAM than you need to run your programs. This will make it hard to play today’s graphics intensive games. In most computers the amount of shared RAM can be changed, but this usually involves entering into the BIOS and changing settings there. It is not a good idea to tamper with the BIOS if you don’t know what you’re doing, since you may inadvertently change other settings that might altogether disable your monitor, or some other hardware device. Also in most cases of shared memory, it is only possible to increase the amount of RAM shared with the video to a certain limit predetermined by the manufacturer. Thus you may not be able to share as much memory with the video as you need to. This can turn into a bit of a problem some time down the line when you buy the newest game.
Now you’re probably thinking it's just easier to go with dedicated memory rather than shared. Think again. My own laptop computer has 384 MB of RAM which meets the minimum requirements of most memory guzzling software. However it has a low end graphics card – an nVidia GeForce4 440 which has only 64 MB of built in dedicated video memory. So although I’m using dedicated memory rather than shared, I am unable to play the newest games which require heavy graphics, since I don't have enough video RAM.
In the end you realize the question isn’t about whether shared memory is a good thing or not. It’s about how much memory you need for each task, and choosing the optimum solution.
That brings us to the final issue. How much memory do YOU need? For surfing, emails and photo editing, the amount of memory required is minimal, and you would be fine with any shared memory scheme, since even very low memory would meet the minimum requirements. Movie watching is also possible on a computer with low video RAM (shared or unshared).
However you express a desire for playing games and video editing. Doom 3, one of the newest, and most graphics intensive games, has a minimum requirement of 64 MB of hardware accelerated video RAM in addition to 384 MB of system RAM. And this is the bare minimum. If you really want to enjoy a gaming experience, you would want a system RAM of 512 MB or over and a separate high end graphics card with dedicated memory of 128 MB or more. Adobe Premier, one of the best video editing softwares, recommends 1 GB of system RAM itself. In these instances, memory sharing would not be an optimum solution. You would need a lot of video RAM as well as a lot of system RAM. It isn't common to buy shared memory in such large amounts. And anyway, for the video you’d be better off purchasing a separate high end graphics card with sufficient dedicated video memory, since you want to play those 3D games.
Your best bet would be to go for a system RAM of 512 MB or more (1 GB recommended) , and a high end graphics card with dedicated RAM of 128 MB or more (256 recommended but expensive). Since the high end graphics card will have the video memory required for the task, you would not need to share memory.
These of course are very high memory quantities/values and will probably cost a fair deal of money, but they will be ideal for the tasks you wish to use this computer for. Else if cost is a big issue, I’ve provided you with enough information here to make your own decision between the two (shared or dedicated), and if you go for shared, you can decide how much you would like shared.
Hope this helps. Good luck with the purchase. |
Modificat de Wishmaker (acum 15 ani)
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