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What is VRAM and how to increase it

Modern computing requires high power from devices. Whether you're working on a YouTube edit or watching a movie on your smartphone, your video memory needs to be high. Your Video Random Access Memory (VRAM) lets you stream, view, and work on video.

In this article, we discuss what VRAM is and why you would want to increase it. Finally, we show you how to increase your VRAM and when you can't.

What is VRAM (why would you want to increase it)

As noted, video RAM is dedicated for media. It differs from normal RAM in that it works with your graphics card to deliver high quality videos and animations. It is specially designed and provides the right information to your graphics card to ensure good output.

There are a few specific reasons why you would want to increase it, but the most notable is if you experience choppy frame rates when playing games or watching movies.

You may also experience performance issues with intensive tasks, such as video editing. In short, if your video performance isn't as good as expected, working with your VRAM might fix the problem.

How to increase your VRAM

First of all, whether you can increase your VRAM depends on your choice of machine. If you're using a Mac, your options are limited, and for all intents and purposes, you can't do this. On Windows, it's a slightly different story.

Either way, you can check how much VRAM you have on either machine. Here are the steps for Windows:

1. Open "Settings -> System -> Display".

2. Scroll down to "Advanced display settings".

3. Click on the "Display Adapter Properties" link.

4. In the dialog screen, click on the Adapter tab. Here, look for the "Dedicated Video Memory" option. This is your total available VRAM.

What is VRAM and how to increase it

As for increasing your VRAM, as we noted, you can only do that on Windows as an end user. If you are on Windows, there are two approaches:

  • Change the VRAM in your BIOS settings.
  • Pretend to increase VRAM using registry keys.

For these, Windows changes the amount of allocated VRAM dynamically. The number you noted earlier is more of an upper limit of what your system can achieve.

Plus, Windows and Mac are more alike than you might think. In fact, neither operating system can update VRAM from the desktop, although you can allocate some RAM to your VRAM. You do this through the Registry Editor.

Here are the steps:

1. Type regedit in the start menu or search bar.

2. Navigate to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareIntel" in Registry Editor.

3. Right-click and create a new key called "GMM" (without the quotes), then select the folder from the left menu.

4. Right-click the right panel again, and this time choose "New -> DWORD (32-bit) Value".

5. Name it "DedicatedSegmentSize" and give it a decimal value up to a maximum of 512.

What is VRAM and how to increase it

At this point, restart your computer and see if the problem is better. There's no guarantee this will fix any issues you're having, but it might give your video playback an extra edge over the previous setup.

In summary

Video is at the heart of the modern web. As such, there's always a good reason to increase the video playback power at your disposal. Increasing your VRAM is a good place to start, as it determines how much memory you have to work with. You can do this through the BIOS or the registry on a Windows machine. The option you choose will be based on your needs and experience working under the hood of your machine.

If you are unsure of the difference between RAM and VRAM, we have a guide for that. Do you need to increase your VRAM? Did this article help you? Let us know in the comments section below!