I know it stands for Video Random Access Memory, but I cant comprehend or visualize what that means. If you can, give me some visual descriptions to help me wrap my head around it.
Thanks!
In: 24
Inside your computer is a tiny little artist. What you see on your screen is this artist’s paintings, flashing before your eyes one after another so quickly that it looks like fluid motion. The frame rate/refresh rate (or FPS, frames per second) of your screen tells you how many of these paintings you are seeing flash before your eyes every second.
Every single one of these paintings is being painted on-the-fly by the tiny artist. So they have to work *fast*.
To know what to paint, the computer gives the artist a set of instructions, as well as some assets (use this color here, put this picture there, etc). The artist needs to take these instructions, paints, and textures and assemble them into the final painting the computer is asking for.
You can think of VRAM as the artist’s desk space. It’s where all their tools and references sit when they’re not actively being used, but will probably be used very soon. Out of the way, but in close reach. Anything the artist needs that does not fit on their desk needs to be fetched from their artist cabinet, which is slow, because they have to take something off their desk to make room, put it away, find the supplies they need, and bring it back. The more desk space the artist has, the more tools they can have out at once and have fast access to without getting up, increasing their overall painting speed.
Latest Answers