Can someone tell me why GPU memory on gaming laptops is so low?

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BradOZman

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Feb 26, 2012
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Most of the new gaming laptops only have 2gig and at max 3gig if you spend like 4k.

My current Toshiba laptop had 4gig DDR5 GPU memory.

It's over a year old and I found it in a bargain bin at Dick Smith for $1000 so don't think it was top of the line when I got it lol.

Is there a reason for this? Does it just not have an impact on gaming? I would think you'd need a lot if you connected a 4k screen to it and ran games with massive textures.
 
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Gingerbread
Nah won't make much or any difference in photoshop unless you do extensive 3D where huge OpenGL textures will be loaded into card memory. When it comes to gaming vram gets saturated mainly when you pump up AA, beside that the problem will be that the gpu is slow, vram won't be the main issue. Gtx 970m with 3gb vram will destroy gtx 960m with 4gb vram any day, any game, any settings.
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Gingerbread

Gingerbread

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Nov 2, 2009
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Reason for that is - no laptop GPU, even the best (gtx 980m) can run 4k gaming on it's own, so the best a laptop can handle is 1080p and 2gb vram is more than enough for 1080p. The GPU hits its processing ceiling before the 2gb vram become a problem. For reference there are gtx 960m 2gb and 4gb vram models, however the 4gb vram models don't perform any better. My guess is your laptop is using a gtx 860m with 4gb of vram which again is not an improve over the 2gb version of the 860m.
 
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BradOZman

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Feb 26, 2012
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It's actually an ATI 265x. Can run massive Photoshop files really well, mush better than my desktop (could be due to the exta RAM). But newer games run slow as the GPu clock speed is weak. 625mhz & I think it only reaches 300mhz for some reason. Battlefeild 4 Runs awsome (probably due to Mantle).

So basically if I buy a gaming laptop and a 4k screen it's not going to work unless I run 1080p anyway.

What about photoshop and unity? Will half the VRAM make a difference there?
 
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Gingerbread

Gingerbread

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Nov 2, 2009
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Nah won't make much or any difference in photoshop unless you do extensive 3D where huge OpenGL textures will be loaded into card memory. When it comes to gaming vram gets saturated mainly when you pump up AA, beside that the problem will be that the gpu is slow, vram won't be the main issue. Gtx 970m with 3gb vram will destroy gtx 960m with 4gb vram any day, any game, any settings.
 
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