Increasing VRAM?

Question

Level 1

20 points

Increasing VRAM?

I have a mid-2007 model MacBook--the one with 64 MB of shared VRAM. I know in PCs it is possible to increase the amount of dedicated VRAM through BIOS. Is it possible to do this on my MacBook in any way? I'm going to have 4 GB of RAM in a few days (though the MacBook will only read 3 GB of it), and I'd like to use some of this for VRAM. Thanks for any suggestions...

Black MacBook, Mac OS X (10.5.2), 2 GB RAM, 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo; 8 GB iPhone

Posted on Apr 20, 2008 7:40 PM

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Answer 1

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Apr 20, 2008 8:34 PM in response to BarnetteBW

As far as I'm aware there is no such option for the Mac. Intel Macs do not have a BIOS such as PCs, rather they use EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface.)

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Answer 2

jomiku

Level 4

1,126 points

Apr 21, 2008 7:14 PM in response to BarnetteBW

You don't understand how the graphics processor works. Read about it. The processor uses a minimum amount of vram and then draws extra ram as necessary from the total amount available. Up to something like 392MB. You don't control it; it's done by the system and the programs and the amount available.

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Answer 3

Mac-Medic

Level 6

17,301 points

Apr 21, 2008 7:18 PM in response to BarnetteBW

Jonathan and Kappy are right. There is nothing you can do to increase the VRAM on a MacBook, except upgrade to a MacBook Pro. Then you will have some serious graphics performance.

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Answer 4

Apr 21, 2008 8:37 PM in response to BarnetteBW

theres no point on putting 4 gigs of ram when your computer can only read 3

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Answer 5

Mac-Medic

Level 6

17,301 points

Apr 21, 2008 9:13 PM in response to art_brana

theres no point on putting 4 gigs of ram when your computer can only read 3.

If you install 4GB, tests show 3.3 GB is the actual maximum. To test it, I installed 4G in my 2.1Ghz MBP and noticed a slight difference in performance from the previous 3G I had insstalled. I don't page out as much as I did before.

-Bmer
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