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2011 MacBook Pro 17 question more vram than Apple stated

D

duffer6

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Feb 13, 2011
273
13
Under system profiler: Graphics my Intel HD Graphics 3000 is reporting 512mb of Vram I thought it was supposed to be 384mb. Also the Intel HD Graphics 3000 is showing no monitor attached while the AMD Radeon HD 6750M is showing the LCD display attached with the correct resolution. I thought the ATI was only used when the GPU was under heavy stress such as video encoding. By the way my ATI vram is correct reporting 1024mb of vram which is correct according to Apple Specs. I have no external monitor attached.

Any insight would be truly appreciated.

Thanks.
 
duffer6 said:
Under system profiler: Graphics my Intel HD Graphics 3000 is reporting 512mb of Vram I thought it was supposed to be 384mb. Also the Intel HD Graphics 3000 is showing no monitor attached while the AMD Radeon HD 6750M is showing the LCD display attached with the correct resolution. I thought the ATI was only used when the GPU was under heavy stress such as video encoding. By the way my ATI vram is correct reporting 1024mb of vram which is correct according to Apple Specs. I have no external monitor attached.

Any insight would be truly appreciated.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Any app that accesses the OpenCL library will switch the machine to the higher-spec video card. That list, unfortunately, includes apps like Chrome, Skype, and Coda, which certainly do not need the higher end card.

Solution: install http://codykrieger.com/gfxCardStatus and you can choose which it uses.
 
TheHoff said:
Any app that accesses the OpenCL library will switch the machine to the higher-spec video card. That list, unfortunately, includes apps like Chrome, Skype, and Coda, which certainly do not need the higher end card.

Solution: install http://codykrieger.com/gfxCardStatus and you can choose which it uses.
Click to expand...

Hoff,

Thanks for the app suggestion. I found out which application was causing the need for the ati use. Odd is was the WD smartview app for my networked hard drive. All good now.

Thanks again.
 
512MB VRAM Reported on 13" MPB, too.

I upgraded to 8GB of RAM and a 7200rpm hard drive before booting my rev8,1 13" MacBook Pro for the first time. After startup, when I inspected the System Profiler I found that the Intel HD 3000 graphics were reported as having 512MB of video RAM, rather than 384MB.

I assumed initially that this may have been the result of the upgraded RAM, but then found your post concerning this same issue, but with no mention of having upgraded from the stock 4GB of RAM.

This is interesting...

Of course, Apple's specs page does state that "minimum graphics memory usage is 384MB," and that "memory available to Mac OS X may vary depending on graphics needs."
 
Last edited:
proboscisjoe said:
I upgraded to 8GB of RAM and a 7200rpm hard drive before booting my rev8,1 13" MacBook Pro for the first time. After startup, when I inspected the System Profiler I found that the Intel HD 3000 graphics were reported as having 512MB of video RAM, rather than 384MB.

I assumed initially that this may have been the result of the upgraded RAM, but then found your post concerning this same issue, but with no mention of having upgraded from the stock 4GB of RAM.

This is interesting...

Of course, Apple's specs page does state that "minimum graphics memory usage is 384MB," and that "memory available to Mac OS X may vary depending on graphics needs."
Click to expand...


Well I think you hit onto something. I did upgrade the memory to 8GB. So do you think with the increased ram has allowed the system to allocate more memory to the Intel graphics chips. I assume it is dynamic memory or virtual vram if you will. What are your thoughts?
 
Sorry to bump an old thread, but I remembered it and caught this:

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3246

Intel HD Graphics 3000

Intel HD Graphics 3000 allocates a base amount of 384 MB for video and processes at startup. For example, a MacBook Pro (13-inch, Early 2011) with 4 GB of RAM installed has 3.7 GB of memory available to Mac OS X and applications (4096-384=3712). For portables that have been upgraded to 8 GB of RAM, the Intel HD Graphics 3000 will allocate 512 MB of system memory instead of 384 MB. For example, a MacBook Pro (15-inch, Early 2011) with 8 GB of RAM has 7.6 GB of available memory (8192-512=7680)

Products with Intel HD Graphics 3000 include:

MacBook Pro (13-inch, Early 2011)
MacBook Pro (15-inch, Early 2011)
MacBook Pro (17-inch, Early 2011)
Note: The MacBook Pro (15-inch, Early 2011) and MacBook Pro (17-inch, Early 2011) also have a discrete graphics processor that you can use for more graphically intensive applications. See MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2010) and MacBook Pro (17-inch, Mid 2010) and later: How to set graphics performance for more information.
Click to expand...
 
Does anyone know if you can disable the intel graphics and force use of discrete only? I could really do with my 512MB back as I use heavy VMs a lot...
 
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