So I have a 512mb intel HD 3000 ?

[colour]

Macbook Pro 2011 - 13" i7 8GB RAM (early 11)

This is the first time I have noticed this but i have 512 mb of graphics memory
all of a sudden instead of the 384 mb advertised ?

This is the first time i have seen this, an explanation can be found here - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3246

 

[JH4DC5]

if you have 8gb of ram, then 512mb is allocated to your video ram. 4gb ram = 384 mb video ram.

 

[Kentochan]

And just to back up the evidence, I had 384MB on the Intel HD 3000 with the stock 4GB RAM, which went up to 512MB with 8GB of G.Skill RAM.

 

[Epic Xbox Revie]

Yup, it's based on your RAM. If you upgrade from 4 to 8 your intel HD 3000 goes up to 512MB.

 

[Inconsequential]

Not that it matters of course.

The GPU isn't quick enough to process 512Mb of graphics data anyway.

The 4870 (which is a MUCH faster GPU) had 512Mb and 1Gb barely made a difference to FPS!

 

[NZed]

If i remember correctly, you would get around 1-2 FPS more when gaming in some games.

 

[dsio]

Not that it matters of course.

The GPU isn't quick enough to process 512Mb of graphics data anyway.

The 4870 (which is a MUCH faster GPU) had 512Mb and 1Gb barely made a difference to FPS!

Why would you expect 512MB more memory to give any performance gains with the same set of conditions and textures anyway?

 

[Young Spade]

Why would you expect 512MB more memory to give any performance gains with the same set of conditions and textures anyway?

I don't think he did, but it's easy for someone who doesn't know the details to assume that more memory = better performance across the board.

 

[colour]

Why would you expect 512MB more memory to give any performance gains with the same set of conditions and textures anyway?

so it does nothing at all but change it from 384 to 512 in the "about this mac" section ?

 

[dsio]

so it does nothing at all but change it from 384 to 512 in the "about this mac" section ?

Well sort of, that amount in the "about this mac" section is the amount of shared memory that has been segregated for the GPU, so even if you're running apps that use 10GB of RAM, and you only have 8GB, and are thus swapping, that amount of RAM is untouchable and un-allocatable by the kernel, and the graphics card will never have it swapped out.

Think about how slow an application runs when the machine is swapping (using hard disk space as virtual memory). Then imagine what that would do to 3D performance, if that several hundred MB of texture data held in graphics memory was swapped, and being read off your hard disk. It would completely cripple the 3D performance, which is why the machine is able to dedicate RAM for specific use in that fashion.

In this particular practical sense, it effectively means nothing, as the likelihood of swapping with 8GB of RAM in a current video game is extremely low to begin with.

 

[GuitarG20]

you have 512 mb because you have 8GB of ram. I just checked, mine is the same.

That RAM is inaccessible for anything besides graphics processing, even if all the other ram is full. The computer will go to swap first.