Noob question about ram and my igpu.

[Ineedthosepants]

TL:DR at bottom

 

I currently have an amd igpu and I was wondering if I increased the ram, how much it would increase the shared system memory? As far as I know windows, or my igpu, uses some ram for gpu power. On my last pc I was able to play Rainbow Six Siege, Dark Souls 3, and Dying Light at 20-30 frames because of the igpu using ram. (I had 8gb, and 128mb of igpu power, my current is 256mb igpu and 4gb, but I plan to go up to 20gb).

 

Yes, I know, pathetic. But if it's playable it's playable, I don't have a monster computer at the moment so I'm really curious to know how much the shared system memory will increase. 

 

I currently have 4gb, and it says it uses 2gb for the system shared memory, so does anyone know anything about this? Like the limit the igpu will use? I plan to add 16gb, and have 20gb in total.

 

 

To sum this up basically, if I upgrade my ram, like to 20gb will I always have a portion of ram that my igpu uses for graphics? I think at least 2gb for graphics then 18 for ram

[Fasauceome]

15 minutes ago, Ineedthosepants said:

I plan to add 16gb, and have 20gb in total.

The ideal setup will be 16GB outright, so that no matter how much ram you use it's always dual channel. That way you'll have the best performance.

 

I believe it automatically allocates 2GB just about always, not that that's a bad thing because that integrated GPU can't leverage much vram all at the same time anyway.

[Ineedthosepants]

1 minute ago, fasauceome said:

The ideal setup will be 16GB outright, so that no matter how much ram you use it's always dual channel. That way you'll have the best performance.

 

I believe it automatically allocates 2GB just about always, not that that's a bad thing because that integrated GPU can't leverage much vram all at the same time anyway.

Okay I'll go with a single duel channel 16GB stick then, I was hoping to use the original 4GB as well but 16 is enough. The 2GB for the igpu is also enough as long as it can at least run my games somewhat okay. 

 

Thanks for the reply.

[Habonch]

9 minutes ago, Ineedthosepants said:

Okay I'll go with a single duel channel 16GB stick then

Don't be confused here, @fasauceome means two 8GB sticks totaling 16GB - not one 16GB stick.

If you have only one 16GB stick your performance will suffer drastically. I am presuming you are only running 1x4GB at the moment and this means your igpu is running at at least 70% of what it could be with an extra stick.

[Fasauceome]

18 minutes ago, Ineedthosepants said:

I'll go with a single duel channel 16GB stick

Dual channel means two sticks, hence "dual"

 

It means you can use both sticks at once, doubling the bandwidth.

[Ineedthosepants]

16 minutes ago, Habonch said:

Don't be confused here, @fasauceome means two 8GB sticks totaling 16GB - not one 16GB stick.

If you have only one 16GB stick your performance will suffer drastically. I am presuming you are only running 1x4GB at the moment and this means your igpu is running at at least 70% of what it could be with an extra stick.

I see, well I will go with 2 8GB sticks then, and yeah I only have 1x4GB at the moment. 

9 minutes ago, fasauceome said:

Dual channel means two sticks, hence "dual"

 

It means you can use both sticks at once, doubling the bandwidth.

Yeah I see now, I'll go ahead and order 2 8GB duel channel sticks

 

Thank you both for your help, I really appreciate it.