What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Shared GPU Memory?
The shared GPU memory feature has several advantages and disadvantages that you need to consider before using it. Here are some of them:
Advantage
- The shared GPU memory feature can increase the amount of memory available to the GPU, which can improve performance and graphics quality in some scenarios, especially if you have a graphics card with limited VRAM, or if you’re running games or graphics applications that are particularly demanding.
- Shared GPU memory features can reduce the possibility of VRAM bottlenecks, which can cause performance and graphics quality degradation, such as stuttering, popping, or artifacts.
- The shared GPU memory feature can provide flexibility and adaptability to the GPU, which can adjust memory usage according to memory needs and availability. This can improve GPU efficiency and optimization in managing graphics data.
Loss
- The shared GPU memory feature cannot increase the actual amount of VRAM installed on the graphics card. This feature can only use RAM as an additional memory source, which is not as fast or as bandwidth as VRAM. Therefore, this feature cannot replace the actual VRAM, but rather only as a temporary or emergency solution.
- Shared GPU memory features can affect graphics performance and quality, depending on how often and how much graphics data is moved between VRAM and RAM. The memory swapping process can be time and resource-consuming, which can lead to decreased performance and graphics quality, such as lag, stuttering, or artifacts.
- Shared GPU memory features can affect overall system performance and quality, depending on how much RAM is being used by the GPU. If the GPU uses too much RAM, it can reduce the amount of RAM available to the CPU and other applications. This can cause a decrease in overall system performance and quality, such as lag, crashes, or blue screens.
Conclusion
Shared GPU memory is a feature offered by some modern graphics cards, especially those based on NVIDIA Turing or AMD RDNA architecture. This feature allows the graphics card to use a portion of RAM in addition or reserve for VRAM, which can improve performance and graphics quality in some scenarios.
However, this feature also has some drawbacks and limitations that you need to know before using it. This feature cannot increase the actual amount of VRAM and may affect graphics or system performance and quality, depending on memory usage.
Therefore, this feature should be used wisely, and not exceed the limits set by the operating system or graphics card. You can also change some settings related to this feature, to optimize memory usage by the GPU.