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Convert Unneeded VRAM Into A Storage Device

Posted by timothy on from the welcome-to-the-bizarroworld dept.

Pawel Kot writes "Have you ever thought why does your graphics card has so much memory? Do You think you have not enough RAM or awfully slow swap file? Do you need fast ram-disk or diskless machine? Go for it! Take one of these cheap 128MB graphics cards and enjoy the speed. Michal Schulz wrote a good description on how to take the advantage of not used video card memory."

2 of 239 comments (clear)

  1. Re:What the hell can I do with that? by Ed+Avis · · Score: 5, Informative

    VRAM can be read and written at the same time - at least on the video card. And it should be possible to use the video hardware to blit around chunks of memory very quickly. I wonder if there are any algorithms (apart from those to manipulate a bitmapped display) which could be specially coded to take advantage of this hardware?

    --
    -- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
  2. Re:I can't help but think.... by jareds · · Score: 4, Informative

    Besides...this only applies to X users anyway.

    That's not true. You don't need to use X to do this, you just need a video card. In fact, if you're just using the machine in console mode, you may as well use your video memory for swap or something.