How much RAM to allocate to Integrated Graphics? (GA-880GA-UD3H with ATI 4250)

[deimos3428]

I'd be more comfortable recommending 256MB (or even 128MB) if the mobo had built-in Sideport, but as far as I can tell that particular model does not.

 

[Seero]

If you read the OP he said he is NOT playing any games.

"Playing" doesn't only refers to game. However, I could use better words like "using."

 

[Outrage]

1080p Video says otherwise.

512MB if you have 4GB+

256MB if less than 4GB

if you do some numbers, you will see that a 1080p frame uses very little memory.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

1080p Video says otherwise.
512MB if you have 4GB+
256MB if less than 4GB

Not really. 1920x1080x32 = 8MB.
We were running 1600x1200 (nearly the same # of pixes) waaaaaaaaay back in the day with puny S3 and Trident cards

 

[Cerb]

Not really. 1920x1080x32 = 8MB.
We were running 1600x1200 (nearly the same # of pixes) waaaaaaaaay back in the day with puny S3 and Trident cards

Today, isn't it more like 1920x1080x128?

 

[taltamir]

Today, isn't it more like 1920x1080x128?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_depth
the highest color depth display is 48bit, the highest color depth a video card can render is 64bit. Both are rare, 32bit is the norm.

 

[Cerb]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_depth
the highest color depth display is 48bit, the highest color depth a video card can render is 64bit. Both are rare, 32bit is the norm.

Is the framebuffer always going to be 32-bit, though? I was under the impression that recent DX versions required hardware support for 128-bit right to the framebuffer.

 

[NoQuarter]

if you do some numbers, you will see that a 1080p frame uses very little memory.

Yup, but you do need 64MB-128MB for DXVA accelerated video playback

 

[taltamir]

Yup, but you do need 64MB-128MB for DXVA accelerated video playback

DXVA sucks, it is much much more likely to stutter and causes your video card to ramp up its fan (making your system loud).
Besides which, if it requires 64-128MB then why does he need 256 or 512MB? And where does it say that it requires that?

 

[NoQuarter]

DXVA sucks, it is much much more likely to stutter and causes your video card to ramp up its fan (making your system loud).
Besides which, if it requires 64-128MB then why does he need 256 or 512MB? And where does it say that it requires that?

I can't comment on the stuttering as I keep GPU acceleration turned off, I watch movies while I play games and have plenty of CPU power to spare for decoding. But I've heard Win7's standard DXVA accelerated codecs are pretty good.

I assume if Aero is taking up 'up to' 128MB of vram and DXVA takes 'up to' 128MB of vram then 256MB vram would be more than enough while 128MB of vram could be too little.

As for how much DXVA actually uses, I'm not sure - i searched on google for a few minutes and saw 128MB someplaces and 64MB once.

 

[Zorander]

Considering the intended use, I don't think OP is going to notice much, if any, difference between 3.5GB and 3.75GB of system RAM.

That said, I'd personally settle with 512MB.

Also, I never notice any fan ramping when DXVA is being utilised (under MPC-HC). Only when I game does the fan ramp up. I guess video acceleration is not much of a challenge for modern cards.

Regards.

 

[taltamir]

Also, I never notice any fan ramping when DXVA is being utilised (under MPC-HC). Only when I game does the fan ramp up. I guess video acceleration is not much of a challenge for modern cards.

I have noticed it on the GTX260 (very recently), and on the HD4850 (a while ago)

 

[happy medium]

Considering the intended use, I don't think OP is going to notice much, if any, difference between 3.5GB and 3.75GB of system RAM.

That said, I'd personally settle with 512MB.

Also, I never notice any fan ramping when DXVA is being utilised (under MPC-HC). Only when I game does the fan ramp up. I guess video acceleration is not much of a challenge for modern cards.

Regards.

This was my point from the beginning.

 

[jacktesterson]

Didn't know onboard had to worry about gpu fans

 

[GundamF91]

Maybe they're talking about system fan that's controlled by the 4pin connector on motherboard?

 

[ManGx64]

So I got a new GA-880GA-UD3H board to test out the Athlon II X4 640 at 3.0Ghz. It's a very nice board, has AMD 880GA chipset, which means it comes Radeon 4250 integrated graphics. It takes DDR3 memory and uses it as GPU memory. I have 2x2GB DDR3-1333 memory installed, for total of 4.0Ghz, and I'm running Win 7 64bit so I can use all 4GB. I'm building this computer mainly as HTPC for playing internet streaming video, as well as compressed video like Xvid. It will not be called up to rip blu-ray or convert video (my Q9450 does that a lot better). And also no games on this, at least nothing beyond flash games.

I'm wondering what's the optimal amount of memory to allocate for integrated graphics? In the BIOS, I have option for the integrated graphics to take 128MB, 256MB, and 512MB.

heey dude, im just wondering, where did u find the options of 128, 256, 512? cuz i have the graphics card (ati radeon hd 4250 with 4gb system ram, amd phenom x3) but in my acer BIOS, it says that theres only 256 MB of memory for the video card, and its greyed out, so i cannot select it to see whether i can change it or not... but i know for sure that ATI RADEON HD 4250 can hold up to 512 mb, and i need to increase it from the current 256 mb

Thanks!

 

[taltamir]

heey dude, im just wondering, where did u find the options of 128, 256, 512? cuz i have the graphics card (ati radeon hd 4250 with 4gb system ram, amd phenom x3) but in my acer BIOS, it says that theres only 256 MB of memory for the video card, and its greyed out, so i cannot select it to see whether i can change it or not... but i know for sure that ATI RADEON HD 4250 can hold up to 512 mb, and i need to increase it from the current 256 mb

Thanks!

in most motherboards that option is not greyed out and you get to choose.
There is a good chance that asus is using the sideport and actually put a 256MB chip of ram on the mobo itself dedicated to the GPU which is a little better then it using system ram.

 

[Hubb1e]

Set it at 256. I have an Nvidia 8300 and when it was set at 128 I got some stuttering in my video. It wasn't much stuttering but setting it at 256 seems to have solved the issue for me. Overclocking my GPU did nothing for me so I'm guessing it was running low on memory. It must have been Aero that took up a bunch of video memory cause 128MB seemed to me like it would be plenty. Still, your ATI graphics might be different...