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Hi, I have had my mac mini for about 5 months, and in that time have also maxed out the ram (4GB). I was wondering if there is a way to force the amount of Video-RAM above 256MB. Is there any thing i can change in system preferences?
This model uses a GeForce 9400M that shares memory with the system. I have not found where that could be upgraded, but: Officially, this model is capable of supporting 4 GB of RAM, but as first reported by MacminiColo, this model unofficially can use 8 GB of RAM after applying EFI Firmware Update 1.2. You might try that route.
The Late 2012 mid-range Mini (2.3 i7) ships with 4Gb RAM and the Intel HD 4000 chipset, and allocates 256Mb to graphics I believe. I have just upgraded the RAM to 16Gb (thanks OWC) and the System Report shows that currently 768Mb is allocated to graphics. So adding physical VRAM, no; the machine allocating more RAM to graphics, yes, by adding system RAM. Hope this helps. Will add an SSD to the second slot in the next week or so and the little mini should be purring along nicely. Ben
Even if your Mac mini is full ram there’s no system option to ad more ram (vram) to the video card but that would be a nice feature.
‘mayer’ is fairly correct. When the using a mac with the GeForce 9400M GPU installed according to Apple: “The NVIDIA GeForce 9400M allocates a base amount of 256 MB for video and boot processes at startup. For example, a MacBook Air (Late 2008) with 2 GB of RAM installed has 1.7 GB of memory available to Mac OS X and applications (2048-256=1792). Mac mini (Early 2009) computers with 1GB of memory share 128MB of main memory with the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M.” We have an A1283 (Mac Mini Early 2009) with 2GB of RAM installed. The video portion in the Graphics/Displays portion of System Profiler shows 256MB of VRAM allocated after startup. see “About integrated video on Intel-based Macs” at: About integrated video on Intel-based Macs
The video ram is a fixed amount that is a separate piece of ram from the main RAM. It comes with the video card/chip and cannot be upgraded unless you buy a new video card. I cant really understand what you mean by ‘maxing out the RAM’ please explain further
