Can't Increase VRAM

[Dissonance]

So I have a GeForce GTX 1050, and have 6115 MB of available graphics memory (or VRAM), and I've checked out several tips for increasing your dedicated video memory but none have helped with my problem. As of now I can only use 2048 MB of memory. If someone could please give me a couple of helpful tips/advice that would be appreciated. Thanks for your time.

[Komrade]

Your card is not 6GB, it's 2GB.

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/products/10series/geforce-gtx-1050/

[Dissonance]

I was checking my specs on Windows 10, and under "Total Available Graphics Memory", it has 6115 MB. Does that mean something else?

[Snow]

It means it can use half of your RAM if needed.

[Dissonance]

So then it's not available video memory, correct?

[Dissonance]

I'm just trying to figure out whether or not it's possible to use more of my VRAM

[Komrade]

Originally posted by I'mNotARealGamer:

I'm just trying to figure out whether or not it's possible to use more of my VRAM

Your VRAM is 2GB. It's dedicated RAM on your GPU, all of it will be used.

Originally posted by Snow:

It means it can use half of your RAM if needed.

But, the GPU can steal a bit from your actual RAM sticks.

[Dissonance]

Would you guys recommend getting more RAM to speed things up somewhat? I have 8 gigs as of now.

[[☥] - CJ -]

Thats Shared Memory
If you play a game that maxes out or nearly maxed out your GPUs VRAM your PCs Physical RAM can be used to help lessen the impact

So
If you have 8GB Physical RAM up to 4GB can be used as shared memory, if you have 16GB RAM up to 8GB can be used as shared, so Half of whatever RAM you have can be used for shared memory if ever needed. So by the looks of it you have 8GB RAM, thats where the 6GB available graphics memory comes from, Half of your RAM and then the 2GB the GPU itself has.

This process is automatic and cannot be changed

More RAM will not affect your GPU, only the available shared memory it can access. More or Faster RAM will not do increase overall graphical performance in games..

[Dissonance]

Ok got it. Thanks everyone. I had pre-ordered Jedi Fallen Order and also just started playing Arkham Knight so I'm just trying to figure out how to get the best experience so that things aren't crazy laggy.

[Snow]

Originally posted by I'mNotARealGamer:

So then it's not available video memory, correct?

Alright, I'll explain it a bit better. See, every application use RAM to store data that goes to CPU and VRAM to store data that goes to GPU. Say, a game tries to use 10GB RAM when you have only 8, what happens? It simply crashes. Not cool. To prevent that, your PC uses part of your HDD/SSD as additional RAM - it's slower, it leads to performance decrease, in most cases to periodic stutters.
Now, VRAM is typically even faster than RAM, and it's typically more VRAM than RAM in a gaming PC. Just like you, I have 8GB RAM and 2GB VRAM, GTX 1050 as well. Once again, if we exceed the VRAM limit - we'll likely have crashes, missing textures, glitches. Once again, to prevent that, PC uses another storage, which is RAM in a modern PC. Every graphics card is allowed to use up to half of RAM to store the data needed for GPU, and just like with RAM and HDD/SSD it can lead to decreased performance and stutters, but, on the other hand, thanks to that feature we can say install some high-res textures on an old game like Skyrim and make some nice screenshots. The performance will suffer, but it will work, and that's what matters here.
Most likely you also have iGPU in your processor. I do, I've got i5-2500. So far iGPUs don't have VRAM at all, so they use RAM as VRAM from the very beginning, and that's how people manage to build PCs with say R5 2400G with no graphics card in a small console-like case, that will run games better than modern consoles, because modern consoles suck in terms of performance.

[[☥] - CJ -]

Only thing you can do is limit running/background processes while gaming and set each games graphical settings accordingly to match the performance of that PC.

Its not crazy powerful so you wont be able to max out the majority of games.

Originally posted by Snow:

Originally posted by I'mNotARealGamer:

So then it's not available video memory, correct?

Alright, I'll explain it a bit better. See, every application use RAM to store data that goes to CPU and VRAM to store data that goes to GPU. Say, a game tries to use 10GB RAM when you have only 8, what happens? It simply crashes. Not cool. To prevent that, your PC uses part of your HDD/SSD as additional RAM - it's slower, it leads to performance decrease, in most cases to periodic stutters.
Now, VRAM is typically even faster than RAM, and it's typically more VRAM than RAM in a gaming PC. Just like you, I have 8GB RAM and 2GB VRAM, GTX 1050 as well. Once again, if we exceed the VRAM limit - we'll likely have crashes, missing textures, glitches. Once again, to prevent that, PC uses another storage, which is RAM in a modern PC. Every graphics card is allowed to use up to half of RAM to store the data needed for GPU, and just like with RAM and HDD/SSD it can lead to decreased performance and stutters, but, on the other hand, thanks to that feature we can say install some high-res textures on an old game like Skyrim and make some nice screenshots. The performance will suffer, but it will work, and that's what matters here.
Most likely you also have iGPU in your processor. I do, I've got i5-2500. So far iGPUs don't have VRAM at all, so they use RAM as VRAM from the very beginning, and that's how people manage to build PCs with say R5 2400G with no graphics card in a small console-like case, that will run games better than modern consoles, because modern consoles suck in terms of performance.

beat you to it

And Shared Memory is not the same as Virtual Memory(Pagefile)

[Snow]

Originally posted by ☥ - CJ - 8/6/19 - Meja 8/30/19:

beat you to it

You did indeed, mate!

Originally posted by ☥ - CJ - 8/6/19 - Meja 8/30/19:

And Shared Memory is not the same as Virtual Memory(Pagefile), so you got that part wrong.

How is it not? Using another storage for data when main's full seems the very same process to me.

Oh, I see where's the confusion here. I wasn't talking about shared memory at all, I was talking about virtual memory in general. It is indeed true that pagefile is not shared and and RAM used by graphics card is, but in both cases it's virtual memory. It's just that Windows says "shared" exactly, but it's still a virtual memory nonetheless.

[Dissonance]

Great, thanks for the explanation. That helped a lot.

[Dissonance]

It's appreciated.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Desktop 1050 is 2gb vram
1050 Ti is 4gb

Ignore what Windows says for total vram that is above what the gpu actually has onboard.

Speccy is also wrong with showing the correct vram.

To check a gpu accurately, use GPUZ