On 10/5/2014 12:48 AM, ken wrote: > > I sincerely *hope* that it isn't some kind of trend that video cards > are using shared memory instead of dedicated memory on the card > itself. All machines I've bought or built since the late '90s have > had video cards with a .5G of dedicated memory. This is mostly > because video memory is physically different, using static RAM rather > than dynamic RAM. The former is something like ten times faster than > the latter. NO video card uses static ram, at least not since the early 1980s. the modern CPUs with integrated graphcis controllers such as the Intel HD4500 stuff is excellent, at least on MS Windows systems. the main memory controller on these CPUs has HUGE bandwidth, the video display overhead is lost in the noise unless maybe you're running dual huge screens. a dedicated controller might be 2-3X faster or more at 3D gaming graphics, but its not usefully faster at normal desktop graphics. dedicated controllers use significantly more battery power than integrated ones, a consideration on a portable laptop. -- john r pierce 37N 122W somewhere on the middle of the left coast