Memory management for graphics processors

[Xywa]

Hi,

I have a question. I have 8GB ram, but to be honest, in last years I have not seen my RAM usage never more than 4GB, even when I was compiling Full HD movies or playing 3D games.

Is it possible to manage this RAM, so eg. graphics processor (Nvida 1GB in my case), could have some extra memory just for graphic processes?

I know for some application I could set memory usage eg. Okular [Settings] >> [Performance] >> [Memory Ussage] has 4 seetings from low to greedy.

[szatox]

Not directly, there are limits imposed by hardware design. Perhaps you could make some use of it with opencl (via calls to host memory or whatever they name it), though there would be a performance hit with any discrete GPU. Integrated GPU wouldn't see a big difference for it's using host's RAM all the time anyway.

However, the kernel itself does use that extra memory. It caches hard drives in RAM, so you don't have to wait for slow IO. It makes your box more responsive and pleasant to use. Good stuff.