Bodric

I have an Intel Aspire 5738Z laptop with an integrated Radeon graphics card (can't find the precise type), with 1024MB Shared memory but only 64MB dedicated. which one is important? and can I change the shared to dedicated?
thanks in advance,

B

EZero

Dedicated memory is the important one. Shared just means it's using system RAM as substitute graphics memory.

And no, it's pretty much impossible to add graphics memory to a video card.

IvanV

They both count. The GPU uses both to store data it uses, but the dedicated one is faster so it kind of acts like cache memory on a CPU.

1024MB of shared memory seems a little excessive to me. If you check under Display adapters in the Device Manager in Control panel, we'll know exactly what graphics card you have, but since 5738Z isn't a gaming laptop, it can't be a high end solution, so it might be better to reduce the amount of memory that goes to the graphics card to 512MB, or, if you don't play games, even a little less. That way that memory is going to be available to the rest of the system and a weaker card really doesn't need a full 1GB of memory.

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Randomness

Hello Bodric:

According to Acer, the Aspire 5738Z is using the Intel GL40 Express Chipset using
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500M (aka Intel GMA4500M).

This particular chipset uses upto 1759MB of shared memory. Because its intel, the shared memory is not fixed, it is dynamically allocated as needed by the driver.

This chipset has 64MB of dedicated memory, which means there is a seperate memory bus to a 64MB chip. Similar to ATI's Sideport memory.

Max external resolution is 2048x1536 @ 75/60Hz; Although i would imagine this chipset would still chock abit playing back 1080p

Regards,

Randomness