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Recently I purchased a Toshiba L675-S7108 laptop with shared Graphic memory 64MB~1696MB with 4GB RAM (DDR3 1066MHz).
If I increase the RAM up to 8GB, will the graphics also be improved while gaming? I would like to put in 2x4GB RAM.
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Recently I purchased a Toshiba L675-S7108 laptop with shared Graphic memory 64MB~1696MB with 4GB RAM (DDR3 1066MHz).
If I increase the RAM up to 8GB, will the graphics also be improved while gaming? I would like to put in 2x4GB RAM.
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No, but it wouldn't matter if it did, there's more to GPU performance than just how much VRAM it has. Much like how much RAM your PC has doesn't affect CPU speed, how much VRAM is available to your GPU doesn't affect how fast it can process graphics - and unfortunately the Mobile Intel® HD Graphics
chip in your laptop is not a gaming chip by any stretch of the imagination, and will struggle to run most graphically intensive applications.
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This is a very hard one.
If you have the ability to select the amount of memory that the graphics on the laptop uses, selecting somewhere around the 512MB mark should increase performance in most games/graphically intensive applications.... Not a lot, but it should be able to do a little more before showing the strain.
If the amount of memory you have for graphics is linked directly to the amount of memory, then you will have to insert more (Make sure your laptop supports above 4GB first).
Having more memory is always better!
1The Intel graphics are going to be limited by memory bandwidth and how few shaders it has, I can't see it running a game at a resolution/detail level high enough to use 512MB effectively. I also believe that the memory is dynamically allocated on the fly by the Intel driver, since my laptop with an Intel graphics chip has no option to change the amount it uses. Nevertheless, I agree - having more memory is always better :D – William Lawn Stewart – 2011-08-03T09:09:17.877
"If the amount of memory you have for graphics is linked directly to the amount of memory, then you will have to insert more (Make sure your laptop supports above 4GB first)." – SAMUR – 2011-08-04T06:04:09.877
"If the amount of memory you have for graphics is linked directly to the amount of memory, then you will have to insert more (Make sure your laptop supports above 4GB first)" Yes, according to the spec of the Laptop: "ttl available graphic memory is the ttl of, as applicable,dedicated video memory, system video memory, and shared system memory.Shared system memory will vary depending on system memory size and other factors." (The laptop supports 8GB) Coming out this spec. I planned to put more memory.IF this doesn't help, is it possible to adjust graphic memory manually by BIOS ? – SAMUR – 2011-08-04T06:55:59.543
@Samur - sorry, can't really help there as it changes from BIOS to BIOS, and I have not seen your exact laptop :( – William Hilsum – 2011-08-04T08:56:30.330
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The Intel HD Graphics 3000M aren't very powerful. At the resolutions and detail settings you'll be able to playably run games at, it won't use much video memory.
You are unlikely to see noticeable performance gains by adding more memory. The Intel graphics are very unlikely to use more than 256MB while gaming, and the remaining availible system memory is more than enough for all the games it'll be able to run.
Basically, the Intel graphics processing speed is the bottleneck while gaming, not how much memory is availible. Adding more memory isn't going to have a significant effect.
Things have changed in recent years - I use the non M variant on my desktop and I have to say that they are awesome and outperform most graphics cards to the £60 mark whilst costing next to nothing in electricity... I highly recommend it to anyone not wanting to play the latest generation games in HD (mind you... I can play a lot of games in 1920x1080... just with a few settings on low!) That being said, I said 512, you said 256 - I really don't know what optimal settings are... Just know that these graphics are good! – William Hilsum – 2011-08-03T09:19:50.613
@William Hilsum: I'm assuming he's referring to newer games and a lower screen res, where the lack of shaders would cripple performance. Older games do run awesome on it, and yeah, running at 1080p would probably require more than 256MB with triple buffering and vsync. – William Lawn Stewart – 2011-08-03T09:30:57.617
It only affects the textures, not the speed. It doesn't matter what size harddrive you have if you can't access the information in it in a timely fashion. – surfasb – 2011-08-03T10:13:38.517