NVIDIA GeForce 9400M

[waltervt]

Hi everybody, I have a stock Macbook Pro 13'' (mid 2009). It has 4GB of RAM and a NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics card using 256MB of the RAM.

I'm gonna upgrade the RAM to 8GB so I was wondering if I can make the graphics card use more than just 256MB.

Cheers

 

[ahdickter]

The RAM the GPU uses is called VRAM, and can't be expanded. So upgrading the main RAM won't let the GPU use more than 256MB.

 

[snowman1]

As far as I know, the NVIDIA 9400m cannot expand the amount of memory that it shares with the CPU. Only the Intel HD 3000 can do that.

 

[waltervt]

The RAM the GPU uses is called VRAM, and can't be expanded. So upgrading the main RAM won't let the GPU use more than 256MB.

But it DOES take those 256MB from the RAM, right? Because I have 4GB and it shows only 3.75GB available. I think there must be a way, I just don't know how.

 

[biohead]

Yes that 256mb is taken from ram. If you upgrade to 8 gb, you'll have 7.75gb usable instead.

You can't make the 9400m use more than 256mb in OSX.

I think in Windows, it uses 512mb.

 

[mikeo007]

Yes that 256mb is taken from ram. If you upgrade to 8 gb, you'll have 7.75gb usable instead. You can't make the 9400m use more than 256mb.

I believe you can under Windows 7, so there may be a way under OSX as well. It's just reserved RAM, there's nothing special about the 256mb that the integrated GPU uses.

 

[waltervt]

I believe you can under Windows 7, so there may be a way under OSX as well. It's just reserved RAM, there's nothing special about the 256mb that the integrated GPU uses.

That's what I'm saying.

 

[biohead]

Not under OS X... and with the 9400m being so old now it's unlikely to ever happen as Apple aren't going to plough resources into it.