Occasionally, I am asked how much graphics memory is in a particular computer. This is usually because someone is about to buy a demanding piece of software, and the system requirements for that program include VRAM or a dedicated graphics card. Not all computers have this kind of extra memory, and PCs don’t make it easy to check! So here are some tips on how to check your graphics card memory:
Apple Computers
Macs are easy. Click the Apple menu and go to About This Mac. Graphics card memory will be stated, below the Processor and RAM.
If you want to go further, you may click the System Report button and click Graphics/Displays on the next screen, for more detailed info.
Windows Computers (PCs)
One easy way to find your graphics memory info is through Task Manager. Press Control-Shift-Esc on your keyboard to bring that up on your screen.
On the left of Task Manager, click on the Performance category. If you don’t see the category names, it may help to foirst click the hamburger button at the top-left!)
Now look for “GPU0”. Click that and down below you should see some info about your graphics card/memory:
In the above graphic, it shows “Dedicated GPU Memory” as 6.0GB. This confirms that this PC does have a graphics card, with 6GB of extra memory for heavyweight programs to use.
Please note: many PCs do not have a graphics card. They have no dedicated graphics memory, and instead employ “integrated graphics” or shared memory. This means the computers just borrow from the regular system RAM when it’s time for some heavy-lifting. For comparison, here’s what the Task Manager reveals for a computer with zero VRAM:
The “Shared GPU memory” indicates that this PC has no special video RAM, but is allowed to borrow up to half of the computer’s regular RAM, when running games and high-end software.
There are other ways to track this info down on PCs. For example, you may open a Run/command/Powershell prompt and type in “dxdiag“. But I feel that Task Manager is more direct and a little less confusing.
Chromebooks
Chromebooks usually don’t have graphics cards or dedicated video memory. If you’re using ChromeOS, you probably don’t need to worry about this!