# Dedicated vs dynamic memory



## Solaris17 (Dec 20, 2013)

Sorry if it has already been explained but since iv gotten my 290x I realize their is a dedicated and dynamic memory usage sensor. could someone explain to me what exactly they mean? I for example only ever use dynamic my dedicated is always read as 0 no matter what kind of 3d program game or stress test I run. Wouldnt dedicated be the memory on the board and dynamic be for things like IGPs?


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## Tatty_One (Dec 20, 2013)

As I understand it, Dedicated is your VRam on the card, dynamic is "system" memory, obviously it's there for IGP users but also relevent for those with insufficient VRam to run a game at a particular resolution so the game draws on system memory.  That of course would suggest that with the 290x and all that VRam goodness your dynamic should be at "0" and not your dedicated, I can only guess that the 290x is not fully supported yet??  dunno.


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## Chetkigaming (Dec 20, 2013)

With AMD always something wrong, but i think dynamic is onboard gpu memory)


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## RCoon (Dec 20, 2013)

Chetkigaming said:


> With AMD always something wrong,


 
Your post is not helpful, if you have nothing valuable to add to the topic, it's perhaps a better option to say nothing at all?


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## Mathragh (Dec 20, 2013)

my 7950 also only ever shows dynamic memory in use since I use windows 8. I always supposed it was because windows 8 uses a different display driver model which GPU-Z doesn't really know how to handle.

I asked about this in the GPU-z part of the forums once but never really got an answer.


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## qubit (Dec 20, 2013)

Tatty_One said:


> As I understand it, Dedicated is your VRam on the card, dynamic is "system" memory, obviously it's there for IGP users but also relevent for those with insufficient VRam to run a game at a particular resolution so the game draws on system memory.  That of course would suggest that with the 290x and all that VRam goodness your dynamic should be at "0" and not your dedicated, I can only guess that the 290x is not fully supported yet??  dunno.


^ ^ Dammit, this troublemaker has beaten me to it. 

It sounds like a bug in the driver to me, at least as far as what it reports, rather than functionality.

I've noticed my nvidia cards show a similar thing (onboard / dynamic) even when they've got a massive 3GB on them. I guess one can think of dynamic memory as a page file for graphics cards. The driver doesn't show zero for the onboard RAM though, but the actual amount on the graphics card.

It would be interesting to max out the onboard memory and see the hammering performance gets when using dynamic memory. It must be possible to write a small synthetic benchmark to do this, regardless of how much RAM the card has?

And yes, IGPs often use dynamic RAM, sometimes as the only memory, where some of the PCs main memory gets reserved as video memory.


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## Solaris17 (Dec 20, 2013)

Thanks all. I figured as much but was really looking to back up my ideas that said this is what I see idle at desktop







I have yet to use a single meg of dedicated memory.


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## Octopuss (Dec 20, 2013)

I saw discrete card use both, though, and it was pretty confusing.


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## Solaris17 (Dec 20, 2013)

Octopuss said:


> I saw discrete card use both, though, and it was pretty confusing.


Thats the thing this board does not have onboard.


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## Sasqui (Dec 20, 2013)

If, for some unlikely reason, the memory on your card should be maxed out, it will start using system memory (RAM installed on your motherboard).  If it's not available, I'm not sure what happens (crash?)

Very similar to paging on a hard drive if system memory is maxed out...  aka Hard Drive "thrashing"


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## Blue-Knight (Dec 21, 2013)

This seems to be a bug because the dedicated usage is shown as zero (and it says it is at max.).

And I think dedicated memory is what is on your graphics card board and dynamic is the system memory.

Anyway, very weird reading of both...


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## Tatty_One (Dec 21, 2013)

GPU-Z 0.75 is released now, see if that helps?


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## Mathragh (Dec 21, 2013)

Tatty_One said:


> GPU-Z 0.75 is released now, see if that helps?


Not for me


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## bagman (Jan 9, 2014)

I need some help with this - I want to log my Dedicated and Dynamic Memory Usage.  However, when I load GPUz I only get a "Memory Usage" tab, there is no differentiation.  

What am I doing wrong?  I have an EVGA GTX 560 Ti SC 1GB, and I'm using 0.7.5.

Thanks.


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## bagman (Jan 9, 2014)

Here is what I see:


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## Steevo (Jan 9, 2014)

131 Dedicated, 58 Dynamic, Firefox and Flash are both using hardware acceleration, and firefox has been configured to page to disk for unused tabs.


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## bagman (Jan 9, 2014)

Steevo said:


> 131 Dedicated, 58 Dynamic, Firefox and Flash are both using hardware acceleration, and firefox has been configured to page to disk for unused tabs.



Sorry, was that in response to my post?  If so, how are you getting the Dynamic/Dedicated breakdown based on the image I posted?  Or the browser info, for that matter?


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## Solaris17 (Jan 9, 2014)

even in chrome i dont get anything I literally use 0mb of dedicated.

I am using GPU-Z 7.5 as well win 8.1 x64 on 13.12


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## bagman (Jan 9, 2014)

Aha, other threads suggest that the different monitors are controlled by the driver.  However, I suspect that my physical card does not have the dynamic sensor, since my driver is up to date 9.18.13.3221 (332.21) ...


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## debido666 (Feb 3, 2014)

I had this problem. Use HWiNFO instead. http://www.hwinfo.com/download.php


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## W1zzard (Feb 3, 2014)

debido666 said:


> I had this problem. Use HWiNFO instead. http://www.hwinfo.com/download.php


how does that change the output ?


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## debido666 (Feb 3, 2014)

I mine coins, and GPU-Z would not show dedicated memory (always 0mb), only dynamic. HWinfo does. I have Windows 8.1 with UEFI enabled.


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## W1zzard (Feb 6, 2014)

Please check http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/gpu-z-test-build-better-memory-usage-monitoring.197646/


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