I need to clear this up....

[Silem]

I'm having a problem understanding some graphics card specifications,

 

a friend of mine, (let's call him Jenkins,) told me that the more Vram, the better the card.

 

but another friend of mine, (let's call him Bob,) said that the Vram doesn't matter...

 

 

I'm kind of mixed between the two as to where im guessing there both right and wrong...

 

The only reason I say that is because my Graphics Card: nVidia GeForce 9500 GT BFG Series, has 1GB of Vram,

as where this, Radeon HD 4850, only has 512, but seems like a much better card.

 

Please help me figure out what I should know so that I can tell them what is the better card.

 

Thank you!

[Agozer]

VRAM or just video memory refers to the amount of memory a graphics card has to work with graphics data (the act of guiding the display devices, storing textures textures, dimensions/resolution, bit depth, etc.) - basically anything that has to do with displaying any type of graphics.

 

A video card with less VRAM can be better than another card with twice the mount because the card simply outperforms the other in terms of speed and/or other features. VRAM is just a storage area and plays a crucial role in graphics-heavy applications - like games. Take something like Crysis set to use every graphics trick it has at maximum detail levels on a resolution of 1600x1200 or higher. It's a huge undertaking for the graphics card, as it has to make millions of calculations per second and handle all the textures and effects at their intended detail level without dropping a single frame in the process. A situation like this is where a huge amount of VRAM comes into play, as the game continues to send data to the graphics card to process. There is a definite limit on how fast a card can process data and it will need to store the data somewhere and perform operations on it.

 

Sure, the graphics card and the game know how to manage the graphics data effectively, so the contents of the VRAM is purged every so often. The problem with older cards with less VRAM is the fact that the card's VRAM becomes filled way too quickly, and the card isn't fast enough to process the stuff it has. When this happens, the card requests that the system RAM and Windows pagefile (and extension of sorts to the computer's main memory) be taken into the play, to lighten the load on the card. when this happens you start to see a lot of swapping in the hard drive, as the CPU has to start switching data back and forth between the graphics card and the RAM. This process is very slow and you start seeing severe performance issues, as the computer tries to cope with the amount of data the game wants it to push around.

 

In terms of emulation the amount of VRAM available is not such a huge issues because after all, we're mainly dealing with consoles of yesteryear that did not boast with graphics back then the way modern games do now. 2D sprites really do not tax a a graphics card at all. Sure, the likes of the PlayStation the Nintendo 64 and the like are a bit different in the way that not only are they pushing 3D graphics, their graphics routines themselves are so specified and unique that they need more VRAM and video card features in order to be emulated at least in some degree of accuracy. Still a video card with more than 128MB of video memory is overkill.

 

I won't go into the newer consoles; the PlayStation 2 and the GameCube. I think you get my long-winded point already.

 

Yeah, got carried away, and there's probably some misinformation too, so people can correct me later.

[Shibathedog]

That 4850 is by FAR better than the card you have now. If you want to get a 4850 though just get a 4870, You can get one for only 20 bucks more now. If you wanted to spend an extra 40 bucks or so you could even get a 4870 with 1GB. It's up to you though. I had a 4870 with 512MB before I got my 4890 (yes there is a 4890 too) with 1GB and honestly I had no problems running anything with that 512MB card because...

 

Another thing you have to take into consideration that agozer didn't mention is the speed of the VRAM. Your card has GDDR3 while the 48XX series has GDDR5. It is so much faster that having less doesn't matter nearly as much because it is able to fill up/empty/re-fill much faster.

 

Also what resolution do you play games at? You usually only need more VRAM for higher resolutions, If you are playing at 1280X1024/1440X900 or something like that, 512MB is usually more than enough, if you are playing at 1600X1200/1920X1080+ you probably want the 1GB model.

[Silem]

Wow, thank you both for the information, that was slightly long winded, but it's more info on my end!

 

To answer Shibathedog, I play my games around 1280X1024/1440X900, and what I'm getting from the message your both sending, is that the VRAM gives the card more space to work on, but doesn't necessarily make the card better in terms of performance, correct?

 

 

EDIT: I forgot to add that I used to have a ATI RADEON Sapphire X1600PRO, with only 512mb, and it ran at almost the exact same quality as my current card.

Edited September 10, 2009 by Silem

[Agozer]

what I'm getting from the message your both sending, is that the VRAM gives the card more space to work on, but doesn't necessarily make the card better in terms of performance, correct?

Yeah, that's the gist of it.

[Shibathedog]

Yep, it's sort of like comparing two PCs, one has a faster processor, but one has more RAM. The one with the faster processor is probably going to be faster.

[Silem]

Oh cool, now that's even more info for me, lol.

 

 

Which reminds me, I have an AMD Dual Core processor, they clock in at 5.1 ghz, is that good for today's standards, or should I look into another Processor?

[Agozer]

"Yes".

 

 

...

 

Very very few applications and/or games aimed at regular users ([hardcore] gamers or otherwise) make use of more than two cores.

[VT-Vincent]

One thing I'd like to add is that the most reliable way to tell where a graphics card stands would be by it's benchmarks. Tom's Hardware has a really good resource for this - their graphics charts will allow you to compare several cards within the same generation to each other interactively so you can see how they stack up in identical benchmarks.

 

In the end though, the most important factor in the speed of the graphics card is the GPU it's using. Quantitative measures such as memory can't be used as a reliable indicator of performance. It's kind of like compairing a Pentium 4 at 3.0Ghz to a Core 2 Duo at 1.8Ghz. If you were to look at only the quantitative speed, the Pentium 4 would seem to be the faster chip in a single CPU benchmark, but the reality is that any Core 2 would easily outperform it even in a single CPU benchmark. The architecture is the determining factor in this particular example, and the same can be true of graphics cards.

[Shibathedog]

5.1GHz? That can't be right. Unless you did some crazy overclocking there. Plus like Vincent said, WHICH AMD Dual core? Some are faster than others (Athlon-Phenom-Phenom2) If you run a program called CPU-Z it will tell you everything about your CPU. If you post a screenshot/model I can tell you everything about it and what/if would be worth it.

 

Oh and take Tom's Hardware benchmarks with a grain of salt. They are okay for basic comparisons but they are known to fudge results so don't read that thinking it's exact.