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Laptop graphics memory
Poor graphics performance has often prvented laptops From competing with desktop computers. If extra multimedia performance is demanded for game play, watching movies, or video / photo editing, ATI's new Mobility Radeon 9200 and 9600 have provided the best laptop solution to date, along with NVIDIA's DirectX9-compliant GeForce FX5200 and FX5600 Go GPU's. Integrated graphics (also referred to a shared video memory) is standard on many different laptop computer models and delivers barely average performance, suitable for office use but not much more.
Try to get 2MB of video memory or more. Less than 2MB and you may have difficulty running programs in Super VGA resolutions. To be able to get true color (XGA - 16 million colors) on an external monitor, the graphics adapter needs 4MB of video memory but, you should consider the fact that the laptop's graphics adapter must also be capable of producing the desired amount of colors.
If the term "shared memory" is listed in your laptop specifications, it is likely that your notebook contains no dedicated video memory. The video controller shares system RAM with the CPU, eliminating the requirement for dedicated Video RAM. For notebooks that use shared RAM, the video controller's capability is the limiting factor for screen resolution. There are two drawbacks to shared RAM: the video controller will access shared RAM slower than dedicated Video RAM, and the memory used by the video card reduces total system RAM available to software programs. For example, if your notebook with 64 MB of shared RAM is running in XGA mode, you would have only 60 MB of RAM available for programs. So if your software program requires 64 MB of system RAM, you are in a difficult spot. |