I am thinking of buying a graphics card. i need to know this information?

well ive heard that most graphics card have to share their memory with the ram of your computer? and that the graphics card does not have its own memory thus making your ram lower and computer slower?

if this is the case how do i know if a graphics card is like that. is it ddr2 or ddr3 or something else?

I am thinking of buying a graphics card. i need to know this information?

OK ... for start most "on-board" graphics cards ... those that are built onto the mother board (mobo) do use "shared memory". Taking part of your system ram for video. Some do not. You can check simply by using the dxdiag utility to see. Do this by typing into the Run command ... dxdiag ... enter. You will see how much actual system memory is available. If your system has 512 ram and you see all 512 availabe, then your on-board card is not using ram but rather has it's own.

Now typically all graphics upgrade cards, either pci, agp or pci-e all utilize their own memory on the card, hence you maintain full system resources.

Now to answer about the ddr2 or ddr3... that info can be found on the manufacturers specs for the card. There is many who will say that it makes a big diference but actually the better the card and more memory it is what you looking for. Especially for extreme graphics aplications such as gaming.

Upgrading your vid card can and will improve performance on any system. Just like increasing the ram. Yes having a faster processor does also make a difference but that is another discussion =)

Simply put ... YES .. get off that on-board graphics!! and get the best card you can afford!!

I am thinking of buying a graphics card. i need to know this information?

Remember that they share resources not steal them.

John

A+ Certified

I am thinking of buying a graphics card. i need to know this information?

omly the ceap ones don't have ram, like Nvidia models with TC (turbo cache) and Ati shared ram or something like that, ddr2 and ddr3 are specifications for the ram on the videocard. for a avarage game pc a Nvidea 7600GS with 265Ram schould be enough or a Ati Radeon X1600

I am thinking of buying a graphics card. i need to know this information?

DDR is actually your RAM. There are graphics cards that have their own memory. If you don't know what you're looking for just ask any sales associate where you shop for a graphics card that has it's own memory. Next you need to know if you require AGP, PCI or PCI Express.

I am thinking of buying a graphics card. i need to know this information?

I have recently bought a XFX7900GT 256MB Graphics card and I have 1Gig Memory installed. Nothing of my memory was used.. so no i dont think your graphics card wil use system meory.. otherwise why would the put memory on the card??

I am thinking of buying a graphics card. i need to know this information?

it shares the memory if it's onboard the mother board if it's on an agp or pcie slot it has its own memory installed on the card get the ddr3 it will work with all of them