Video memory may be a different matter. In most cases, video memory is
permanently installed on your video card; unlike your PC??™s system memory,
it can??™t be upgraded unless you replace your card. But if you have a laptop
or low-end desktop, your video is likely built into your motherboard, and its
video memory is merely a portion of your PC??™s system memory (which is
upgradable). This means that it may be possible to allocate more system
memory for your video (at the expense of memory Windows can use) by
228 | Chapter 5: Performance
changing a setting or two in your system BIOS. See Appendix A for the
appropriate BIOS settings.
So, how much video memory do you need? It depends on your screen??™s resolution,
but a basic rule of thumb is that you need a minimum of about 48
bytes of video memory for each pixel on your screen, as shown in Table 5-1.
As you can see, it may be possible to get Glass with as little as 32 MB of
video memory on some lower resolutions??”and there are those who have
achieved this??”but depending on your card and its driver, your mileage may
vary.
As for your PC, it??™s a good idea to have at least 1 gigabyte of system memory
(RAM). Although you can get away with less??”and you may have to if
your video memory is being shared with your system memory as described
earlier??”you may not find the performance acceptable on a PC with less
than 512 MB. See the next topic, ???Maximize the Windows Performance Rating,???
for ways to measure whether your processor and hard disk are also up
to running Glass.
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