What is the difference btw ATI's Hyper Memory graphics cards and NVidia's regular one for notebooks?

I'm looking in particular at what are the best graphics cards for notebooks and I find it a bit confusing when ATI cards are marketed as 512MB Hyper Memory and I don't know how that compares to an NVidia 256MB regular notebook graphics card in terms of performance.

What is the difference btw ATI's Hyper Memory graphics cards and NVidia's regular one for notebooks?
ATi Hyper Memory means that it actually shares memory with the notebook RAM. And in your case, it can share the notebook RAM up to 512MB. This is what ATi says:...





" HyperMemory™ is ATI’s innovative technology that enables a reduction in the amount of on-board memory on a graphics card without compromising its overall performance.





Its advanced memory management technology makes more efficient use of all the available memory in computers with PCI Express® technology. Graphics applications can share system memory and use fast on-board memory for real-time processing between the graphics card and the computer’s memory. This ultimately increases the affordability of ATI’s RADEON® graphics technology ".





If you ask me there's nothing great here as it usually slows down the notebook.





The Nvidia ones however may be utilising a "Turbocache" design. This means that when it says that the graphic card has 256MB - it means that the card itself has 128MB of dedicated memory and will utilise another 128MB off the notebook RAM if need be (card + notebook RAM = 256MB).





Its very important to check and find out if your notebook has dedicated, Hypermemory or Turbocache memory. The best is of course the dedicated mems as you will not be disturbing any on board notebook RAM but this of course comes with a hefty price tag.





I'm currently using a Dell XPS with the Nvidia Geforce Go 7400 256MB. This card uses the Turbocache design. Surprisingly it works well and I can play high-end games like Half-Life 2: Episode 1 and also FEAR (on Min to Med settings, of course). I have no complaints regarding this turbocache thingie as it seems to know when to utilise the notebook RAM accordingly and it also comes with a software where you could actually control the maximum memory the card can take from your notebook RAM.





Hope this helps......%26amp; Good luck choosing....
Reply:Hyper memory I'm sure is just a marketing ploy of sorts. It's possible that it's just a higher clock speed of DDR memory. The problem with laptop performance isn't going to be determined by the clock speed of the memory however. Laptops aren't really designed for gaming in general because everything is designed to save power, not tweaked for maximum performance. Hard drives spin slower, the CPU will idle down to a lower clock speed, etc.





I wouldn't really shell out a lot of extra money for the "Hyper" memory, but 512 is always better then 256 obviously. Just be prepared for all of this to not really be a "laptop" unless you like toasty crotch areas. Modern laptops are super hot after about 5-10 minutes of use.

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