Creative Communities of the World Forums

The peer to peer support community for media production professionals.

Activity Forums Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy MacBook Pro :VRAM 126MB vs 256MB

  • MacBook Pro :VRAM 126MB vs 256MB

    Posted by Kozo Okumura on June 27, 2007 at 3:09 pm

    i am considering to buy MacBook Pro 15inch.
    I would like to use FCP studio with it.
    My question is VRAM 256MB worth for extra $500?
    I understand more and more application is taking advantage of VRAM.
    but at the same time, according to article from barefeats
    (https://www.barefeats.com/rosa03.html)
    it is not that different and may not worth for extra $500.

    I would like to hear your opinion from filmmakers point of view.

    thanks

    Russell Lasson replied 18 years, 10 months ago 4 Members · 6 Replies
  • 6 Replies
  • Michael Sacci

    June 27, 2007 at 3:28 pm

    Most graphic programs like Motion, AE and Combustion use the GPU intensively so if they are a big part of your workflow it probably be worth it.

    $500 upgrade also includes a slightly faster processor and a little bigger HD. All add a little more value.

  • Russell Lasson

    June 27, 2007 at 3:32 pm

    The two programs that you might be able to see a difference in with the 256MB VRAM is Color and Motion.

    Currently Color doesn’t have full support for Nvidia cards. It will only use 8-bit for for the internal Color processing currently. Plus, there isn’t any video out support.

    For Motion 3, currently it sounds like it’s not taking advantage of the extra RAM in the graphics processor, but that could change with an update.

    For the rest of the programs, you won’t be able to tell a difference. If I were making the decision, I’d go with the 128MB card, but up the hard drive for sure.

    -Russ

  • Uli Plank

    June 27, 2007 at 7:57 pm

    Motion can handle larger stills with more VRAM.

    Regards,

    Uli

    Author of “DVDs gestalten und produzieren”, a book on professional DVD-authoring in German.

  • Kozo Okumura

    June 28, 2007 at 2:15 am

    Thank you for your response.
    But my answer is not fully answered yet.
    I know that motion take advantage of more VRAM as well as other softwares.
    But my question is how much different?
    I know for sure that twice VRAM does not make the applicaiton run twice faster.
    is $500 for additional 128MB VRAM worth?

    K

  • Uli Plank

    June 28, 2007 at 6:24 am

    It’s not making it much faster. Is the difference in price that big now? Wasn’t when i bought mine.

    You’ll need to decide if you’ll need to work with large stills (panning or zooming) for HD video. Motion will be limited in that aspect with 128 MB. If this is not important for you, go for less.

    Regards,

    Uli

    Author of “DVDs gestalten und produzieren”, a book on professional DVD-authoring in German.

  • Russell Lasson

    June 28, 2007 at 2:49 pm

    Here are some benchmarks:

    https://barefeats.com/rosa02.html

    Also, with the latest Color update, you need at least 256MB of VRAM to render in floating point.

    -Russ

We use anonymous cookies to give you the best experience we can.
Our Privacy policy | GDPR Policy