Video RAM vs. System RAM

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beanman101283

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Can somebody explain to me when video RAM is used in a game and when system RAM is used? Obviously the executable and needed files are loaded into system RAM, but what about textures? With 1 gig of RAM i was running FEAR with medium texture resolution because everything ground to a halt with high resolution. I just upgraded to 2 gigs and now i can run high resolution textures. I thought that textures get loaded into the video card's RAM? Just looking for some clarification, thanks.
 
It really depends on the game.
Some games are designed so they rely on the processor and system ram more (BF2, COD2 etc). Some games use your video card's ram more (Farcry etc).
 
Textures are generally too big to all be stored in Video RAM. Only the textures required for the current scene are in Video RAM, and new textures are swapped from system RAM to video RAM as needed. Sounds, physics data, and other non video related game data is in system RAM.
 
Oline61 said:
Textures are generally too big to all be stored in Video RAM. Only the textures required for the current scene are in Video RAM, and new textures are swapped from system RAM to video RAM as needed. Sounds, physics data, and other non video related game data is in system RAM.
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Yup, and it should be noted that FEAR's textures are so large that sometimes they don't even fit into the system ram - hence, they go into the pagefile. So when you see stuttering when going around corners and such, it's because the game has to retrieve textures off of the hard drive, which isn't the fastest method out there! :eek: This is probably why you saw a performance increase with 2GB - it no longer had to put textures into the pagefile.
 
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