nVidia 9400M question

[Mikey B]

The VRAM is limited to 256 MB. I'm just curious, is it a driver limitation that prevents it from accessing more memory from RAM or is it a hardware limitation?

I'm wondering if it would increase graphics performance if there was away to allow the 9400M to access more memory than just the 256. If I have 4GB of RAM in my MB, I'd love to find a way to kick more than 256 over to the GeForce's way if it means better performance.

I don't know a heck of a lot about GPU's so I figured I'd pick the collective MacRumor's Brain. I'm sure I'm missing a big part of the puzzle.

 

[kenned]

Actually, i'm pretty sure the 9400M increases the memory it uses as necessary.

 

[sallythemac]

I would like to know the exact same thing...

Any takers?

 

[lankox]

Excellent question!

 

[Cali3350]

Its limited in hardware by how it addresses system memory, it cant be changed.

Its important to realize that more graphics memory doesnt improve performance in games like system memory improves system performance though. Other than texture sizes video memory is largely useless (and even then a game that takes up more than 256mb of texture memory wont run that great on it anyway).

 

[alphaod]

System RAM is slow, so increasing your usage of it will not increase you performance much.

 

[aratio]

About the same:

I will not use my MacBook to perform games or doing highly demanding video things but I want to run virtual machines in my computer, so, can I say: "Video card, please use 128M of memory instead of the 256M you want"?