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    Allocate more than 256MB for 9400m?

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by chyidean, Dec 1, 2008.

  1. chyidean

    chyidean Notebook Evangelist

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    Is this possible?

    If I upgrade to 4GB RAM I want to allocate 1GB, again, if possible.

    Thanks.
     
    chyidean, Dec 1, 2008
    #1
  2. ltcommander_data

    ltcommander_data Notebook Deity

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    I don't think there is a way to do it in OS X. They probably didn't bother adding such a feature because it's pretty much useless anyways. The 9400M isn't powerful enough to effectively use more than 256MB of video memory. Even the 9600M GT in the MacBook Pro would probably be hard pressed to find legitimate cases where 512MB of video memory offers much advantage over 256MB. (Since I don't consider cases at super high settings where the 512MB may give 5fps to 2.5fps for the 256MB version to be legitimate since even with 2x improvement it's irrelevant).

    In Vista it's also irrelevant since Vista automatically uses system memory to expand video memory when needed even for GPUs with dedicated video memory.
     
    ltcommander_data, Dec 1, 2008
    #2
  3. Greg

    Greg Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Additionally, the 9400M is a low(er) end card. It will not benefit from having more RAM, especially shared RAM (which is slower than dedicated video RAM).
     
    Greg, Dec 1, 2008
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  4. chyidean

    chyidean Notebook Evangelist

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    Gotcha.

    Thanks for the clarification, guys.
     
    chyidean, Dec 2, 2008
    #4