Does allocated VRAM size matter for integrated GPUs (APUs)?

Is it important to change the pre allocated VRAM size in the BIOS? Let's find out!

Filterless Video about the VRAM in the ALLY:
(Also check out his other ROG Ally Content! Some Hard Work there!)

Review of the used LENOVO LOQ 15:

RX 760M vs RX 780M:

The Laptop:
Lenovo LOQ 15 APH8
Ryzen 5 7640HS
RDNA 3 Integrated Graphics: RX 760M
RTX 3050 6GB (DEACTIVATED!!!)
16GB DDR5 5600 Mhz / 32GB DDR5 4600 Mhz
512GB SSD
Win 11

[bas]

Finally, someone with more elaboration on this subject, actually testing multiple times, and acknowledging mistakes.
Great explanatory video overall!

[ericliume]

It seems a lot of people still don't know how memory allocation work for iGPU. The dedicated vram for iGPU only means that amount of ram is reserved for iGPU, but it doesn't mean iGPU can only use that amount of vram. If a game requires more vram, the system will allocate more ram as vram dynamically, if there is still free memory available. However, if you are not running games, but some big applications, such as rendering high resolution videos or big projects, which are memory insensitive, but not vram intensive, the system cannot shrink the dedicated vram. The reason you see FPS increase when you increase the dedicated VRAM is most likely there is a bottle neck on the total available free memory. Here is the simple fact, the performance of iGPU is greatly impacted by 1. the frequency of RAM (the higher the better) 2. the total amount of RAM (the more the better).

[fpshunter]

Dude, you are the best! It’s so interesting, I’m enjoyed!

[jasonlc]

Hub, I loved this video. Thank you for doing all that work for something that most people wouldn't even consider a "big deal." As a Steam Deck owner, I can vouch for your video that it's TRUE, some games benefit from having more allocated VRAM.

Btw, I love your channel and your videos. Very good and polished content. I like that you're narrating more of your benchmark videos lately. I know it's more work, but I enjoy your content even more because of it. Keep up the great work 👍

[ramr]

very interesting! Good reference for future discussions.

[cobaincase]

Sehr gutes Video. Filt3rless bringt heute oder morgen noch ein neues Video, wo er auch u.a. 5 und 6GB VRAM testet. Darauf bin ich besonderes gespannt. Wirklich schade, dass dem Ally nicht insgesamt 32GB gegönnt worden sind.

[jerrelljohnson]

Awesome thanks 👌🏾 I was just testing this on my 4500u. I came out with similar results!!

[danavidal]

I think it depends on the OS, for the Steam Deck it actually help 99% but the Deck always download shaders while Windows for some reason only does at 512 MB so the increase of VRAM is negated by this (being RDR2 the one who negatively impact the steam deck on this)

Cryo Utilities explain it saying that the iGPU does not have to wait to get the data (bc CPU and GPU is fighting for the same RAM)

[kogarashixz]

Ty for making video about this specific topic. I knew it would increase the FPS, but the gains are indeed lower than what I expected. Btw the 0.5TB VRAM is like a dream for consumer AI enthusiasts 😁

[DeveshkumarNarasimma]

I think you can increase the vram in radeon settings. Its under performance tuning and set the memory optimizer to gaming. I did this on my rog zephyrus g14 and it increased my vram to 4gb. I usually play genshin impact, while using the 4gb vram I noticed at first the game runs smoothly and then after a few hours the game feels laggy even though the fps is the same as in the begining, maybe the frametime got worse overtime.

[pamus]

My guess is that the difference between DDR4 versus DDR5 is quite profound. Applications now see the integrated iGPU in DDR5 as a dedicated graphics card along with other AMD optimizations.

[ACuteAura]

some games are more conservative with vram allocation because they don't know they can allocate more
some games get worse with more dedicated vram too because they expect dedicated vram to be faster, as seen in hogwarts
but also it really depends how often a game allocates/deallocates memory, since non-dedicated vram needs to go through the windows allocator (where it might cause a bunch of side effects - memory compression, pressure etc.), while dedicated vram can just be handled by the GPU driver. AC games seem to know how much they'll need in advance quite well for instance.

[yuvitv]

so the difference is negligible except some games, so the use of allocating more ram is basically it can open games that won't launch due to low vram, but in performance it won't be much difference

[TechniCraftYT]

I also had 512mb allocatet as vram the fps were the same as 1G, but not all textures could load .

[samal]

AMD just announced the phoenix drivers are coming out by the end of the month. Curious to see if it will have an impact on performance.

[BabyAteTheDingo]

But then you need to think, are those extra GBs allocated specifically for VRAM worth it? When remaining unallocated could help system performance outside of gaming. What do people think? I have 16gb, 2gb VRAM and considering dropping it to 512mb because I think that extra 1gb might be more worthwhile unreserved for outside of gaming, considering during gaming it does a fairly good job of allocating it appropriately.

Thanks for all the effort you put into this

[Max_YTube]

for me honestly, when i allocated from 256mb(before) to 1024mb the difference was huge giving me +100 fps making me average 140fps

[DoubleMonoLR]

LLooking at the "RAM"(which is effectively RAM left over after GPU usage) in the benchmarks(bottom line of text), Windows is proportionally increasing available shared gpu memory(decreasing "RAM") with increased dedicated RAM, and also increasing shared GPU memory when installing more RAM. It seems likely Windows is always allowing up to 1/2 of the total RAM to be used as shared GPU RAM.
@2:48, Forza with 16GB RAM = increasing dedicated RAM from 0.5 to 2GB decreases overall ram from 14.6GB to 12.9GB = 0.5GB dedicated+ 0.9GB shared, to 2GB dedicated + 1.1GB shared gpu ram being used = approx 1/3 dedicated gpu memory, to 2/3 dedicated, with a significant increase in performance.
@6:14, Forza with 32GB RAM = increasing dedicated RAM from 0.5 to 2GB decreases overall ram from 16.4GB to 15.8GB = 0.5GB dedicated+ 15.8GB shared, to 4GB dedicated + 12.2GB shared gpu ram being used = 1/30th dedicated gpu memory, to 1/4 dedicated. ie: still largely shared gpu ram, and with less improvement. Considering it used much less shared GPU RAM with 16GB installed, it seems likely that it was programmed well and 16GB of 32GB installed was enough non-gpu memory for the game so it let the gpu eat up the rest.
ie: Some games are still using much more shared memory than dedicated memory, sometimes changing proportionally with dedicated memory &/or increased physical memory, and sometimes not. Some games also eat up basically as much dedicated+shared memory as they can get, even when sometimes the gpu &/or memory available isn't fast enough for it to help performance, while simultaneously lowering ram available for other use.
I'd imagine "shared" ram gets slowed down by having to pass through some form of assignment by windows, rather than just being accessed directly.

[douglasmurphy]

The real question I want answered is if turning up textures quality is free on these integrated APU graphics with plenty of RAM to go around. What I see in every video benchmarking them is the settings (rightfully so) set to low across the board to give the igpu a fighting chance at a playable framerate. I'd like to see low, but with textures turned up, as the igpu has limited compute capabilities but has access to as much memory as a $500 dedicated card which should be leveraged if possible.

[TorstenSimon]

I just ran into this a few days ago on the ROG Ally. I had constant micro stutters in Forza Horizon 5 and switching from 4 to 8 GB VRAM allocation actually solved it. I was puzzled as well since I had the same understanding before that since it's the same ram pool it makes no difference (and as far as I can tell I never noticed any differences on the old Vega 8/11 IGpus)