How does more memory in a video card help gaming?

im looking to buy a new video card and i was looking at the system requirements for different games and the more powerful ones want 512mb of memory to run it at full settings but i've seen much better cards with only 256mb and when i asked my friend about it he said that it didn't really matter that much but didn't actually explain it to me so i was wondering what the extra memory actually does|||The type of memory used on the graphics card can be accessed by your computer's processor much faster than permanent memory.



So, the more of the graphics data (which can take up rather a lot of space) that can be stored in this faster memory, the faster, and smoother your gaming experience will be.



I'm sorry to say that your friend is mistaken, it really does matter how much memory your graphics card has. Unless of course, you're only playing Solitaire on Windows; then, indeed, it really doesn't matter.



But if you're a high resolution, fast action, gamer. The more memory you have, the more you'll enjoy your experience.



Of course, there is something to be said for maintaining the equilibrium of your machine. For example, if you're on a Pentium 1 machine, you can put the biggest memory graphics card you can find in there - it won't make any difference!



But if you're computer is up-to-spec, and you're only looking at graphics cards, 512MB over 256MB anyday.|||I think you are talking about RAM- I never heard of a video game that requires 512mb of RAM.|||The graphics memory is accessed by the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), NOT the main processor. Most of your graphics calculations are done via the GPU which has access to the graphics memory. The more "on board" graphics memory you have, that is the memory that is physically located on the video card, then more of the graphics program data and instructions can be stored thereby reducing access to the hard disk. Remember all of your programs, everything, is located on the harddrive and must be put in either the main memory or, in the case of graphics programs/data , in the video card memory to be executed or accessed.



In some cases, when there isn't a large amount of video memory, ie. graphics memory, the system will asssign some of your main memory as "shared" memory. that is it is "shared" by both normal programs/data and graphics programs/data.