13" MBP Late 2011 Video RAM Question

[ChopinGuy]

So I picked up a late 2011 2.4 13" MacBook Pro the other day -- I already had waiting my Kingston 8GB of RAM and Intel 160GB 320 SSD -- which I installed before even powering on the machine for the first time. Love the way the computer runs -- absolutely fantastic.

Last night I opened the system profile to look at things and noticed it said my video/graphics card INTEL 3000 but with 512mb of RAM -- what's the deal with that?? Not that it's bad thing but I know this is only spec'd at 384 -- anyone else notice this or have this issue??

 

[bill-p]

Intel HD 3000 uses 384MB of your system RAM if you have less than 4GB installed.

It uses 512MB if you have more than 4GB installed.

Since you have 8GB installed, it's using 512MB of that. Technically you have about 7.5GB of system memory free to use after that.

 

[Titanium81]

So I picked up a late 2011 2.4 13" MacBook Pro the other day -- I already had waiting my Kingston 8GB of RAM and Intel 160GB 320 SSD -- which I installed before even powering on the machine for the first time. Love the way the computer runs -- absolutely fantastic.

Last night I opened the system profile to look at things and noticed it said my video/graphics card INTEL 3000 but with 512mb of RAM -- what's the deal with that?? Not that it's bad thing but I know this is only spec'd at 384 -- anyone else notice this or have this issue??

VRAM on a 2011 13" MBP is based on a percentage of the total system ram that you have. That is why you see an increase in the VRAM after the 8GB RAM upgrade.

 

[ChopinGuy]

VRAM on a 2011 13" MBP is based on a percentage of the total system ram that you have. That is why you see an increase in the VRAM after the 8GB RAM upgrade.

This makes sense -- and it what I thought might be happening perhaps -- thank you for the clarification...