Shared graphics memory: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 00:07, 2 May 2009

Revision as of 17:08, 8 August 2009

Line 7:

The disadvantage of this design is lower performance because system RAM usually runs slower than dedicated graphics RAM, and there is more contention as the [[memory bus]] has to be shared with the rest of the system. It may also cause performance issues with the rest of the system if it is not designed with the fact in mind that some RAM will be 'taken away' by graphics.

Other approach that gave similar final state is boost up of graphics, that is used in some [[Silicon Graphics|SGi]] computers, most notably [[SGI O2|O2/O2+]]. The memory in these machines is simply one fast pool (2,1 GB/s per second in 1996) shared between system and graphics is done on demand including pointer redirection communication between main system and graphics subsystem. This is called [[Unified Memory Architecture]].

== History ==