Shared Memory Architecture

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In computer architecture, Shared Memory Architecture (SMA) refers to a design where the graphics chip does not have its own dedicated memory, and instead shares the main system RAM with the CPU and other components.

This design is used with many integrated graphics solutions to reduce the cost and complexity of the motherboard design, as no additional memory chips are required on the board. There is usually some mechanism (via the BIOS or a jumper setting) to select the amount of system memory to use for graphics, which means that the graphics system can be tailored to only use as much RAM as is actually required, leaving the rest free for applications. A side-effect of this is that when some RAM is allocated for graphics, it becomes effectively unavailable for anything else, so an example computer with 512MB RAM set up with 64MB graphics RAM will appear to the operating system and user to only have 448MB RAM installed.

The disadvantage of this design is lower performance because system RAM usually runs slower than dedicated graphics RAM, and there is more contention as the memory bus has to be shared with the rest of the system. It may also cause performance issues with the rest of the system if it is not designed with the fact that some RAM will be 'taken away' by graphics in mind.

[edit] History

The first PC to use the SMA architecture was the IBM PCjr, released in 1984. Video memory was shared with the first 128K of RAM. The exact size of the video memory could be reconfigured by software to meet the needs of the current program.