Macbook Pro RAM vs VRAM Question

Apple specs indicate 768 MBs of VRAM is the maximum, however, their specs also say 8 GBs is the maximum amount of RAM you can install. I could not find specs on the CPU to determine if that is a GPU limit or if VRAM increases again with an increase in RAM to 16 GBs.

Video RAM (VRAM) on discrete cards is independent of the system RAM.

Free SysRAM may be shared to the graphics card...

See this reference to answer your questions:

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3246

The maximum is ~1.7 GBs and would require a system with 32 GBs of installed RAM. So that would imply that at 16 GBs the maximum available VRAM should be around 1.2 GBs (I'm trying to add in my head, but I think another 512 MBs.)

I found this information as it was determined on a Windows system. No assurance it is the same on the Mac.

i have the mid 2012 13" non retina mbp.

apple limits the vram in mountain lion to 512mb with 16gb ram.

the vram limit in maverics is 1024mb with 16gb ram.

there is a legitimate exploit to adjust the vram in mountain lion to be whatever you want, by editing, and running this script:

sudo perl -pi -e 's|\x00.{1}\x10\x07\x00\x00\x10\x07|\x00\x??\x10\x07\x00\x00\x10\x07|g' ~/Desktop/AppleIntelFramebufferCapri.kext/Contents/MacOS/AppleIntelFramebufferC apri

Change the red ?? with the red number bellow to set the desired amount of VRAM:

10 = 256MB of RAM

18 = 384MB of RAM

20 = 512MB of RAM

30 = 768MB of RAM

40 = 1024MB of RAM

80 = 2048MB of RAM

1. copy AppleIntelFramebufferCapri.kext to the desktop and make a backup of it

2. run the script in the terminal (dont forget to fill in the ??)

3. install the kext, rebuild caches (i would suggest kext wizard)

4. restart

the red did not paste in here, so just look for the only question marks in the script.

Interesting - I learn something new here daily!

Just two questions:

1. I'm assuming that this command only works with the integrated GPU?

2. Do you know if the kext modification is compatible with Mavericks?

Thanks,

Clinton

it does not work on mavericks.

it will only work with the intel hd4000 in mountain lion.

Ah!

Pity - I'd love to have a machine with 2GBs of VRAM (guess I'll have to wait until my AppleCare has expired!).

Thanks,

Clinton

crucial ram is over rated.

you can get better heatsinked "komputerbay" ram for cheaper.

16gb currently 135$ on amazon.

http://www.komputerbay.com/memoryfinder/categories/?brand_id=19

Doesn't look as if they even SELL Mac-specific RAM... why do you think that Crucial RAM is overrated? I've yet to see anyone here having problems with it yet with PNY, etc., we have folks having a number of problems.

I admit that I'm prejudiced as I've had Crucial for a long time... but I hardly think that you can call it 'overrated' when it simply works well with Macs and is guaranteed to work with Macs.

Clinton

it is always overpriced to me, that is the only reason i say over rated.

OWC is even more expensive than Crucial... yet Crucial is just as good as OWC. Micron is a huge, technologically advanced company. You simply pay more for tightly controlled specifications and guarantees that the RAM will work with no problems in finicky Macs.

Clinton

yea, i have been buying komputerbay for years from ebay and amazon.

i have installed it in at least 20 different macs of family and friends.

it is always high quality chips, with same brand names apple uses like hynix.