more video ram please

[realgeek]

I would like to test the performance of a game running in VirtualBox. However it won't start unless it sees at least 256MB video memory. Could we extend this option, please?

[Peter]

I would like to second this motion, given that there are graphics cards on the market now with 1 to 2 GBs (what will they be 6 months to a year) 128 MBs is sort of on the low end.

[Sander van Leeuwen]

You all seem to forget that we are talking about virtual graphics hardware here. VirtualBox generally doesn't need much beyond room for the frame buffer plus some extra room for misc things. All memory above 32 mb is generally wasted as we allocate, but never use it.

3D info such as textures etc is not stored in the guest VRAM, but transported to the host card.

[realgeek]

Replying to sandervl73:

You all seem to forget that we are talking about virtual graphics hardware here. VirtualBox generally doesn't need much beyond room for the frame buffer plus some extra room for misc things. All memory above 32 mb is generally wasted as we allocate, but never use it.

3D info such as textures etc is not stored in the guest VRAM, but transported to the host card.

Thank you for your response. It isn't an issue of forgetting, really, because I'm not sure many people understand how the video is virtualized in the first place. Please explain the issues further. Does real memory need to be allocated for virtual VRAM? Can't it be mapped to video card memory more directly? I'm still unclear as to why people can't set this to something that is more appropriate for their host, regardless of the potential waste. Thank you.

[Technologov]

Video RAM setting in VBox is only relevant for 2D. 16 MB is enough.

All 3D applications use full host's video RAM, not matter how much VRAM you set in VBox. That is, you can set 16 MB of VRAM in VBox, and run 3D game that requires 512 MB of VRAM -- all of this will be mapped to your real 3D card.

But I agree, that section "3.5. Display settings" does not explain it. (VBox 3.1.0 User's manual) So docs could be improved.

Please close as invalid.

-Technologov

[Frank Mehnert]

These days VBox supports up to 256 MB video RAM per guest.