AMD 3400G APU with Vega 11 GPU VRAM Increase Solution

[raghavsood999]

This is my system specifications:

DDR4 32GB Dual Channel 3600MHz
MINI ITX Motherboard - 32GB Max RAM Support
AMD Ryzen 5 3400G APU / Vega 11 GPU - 2GB MAX VRAM assigned in BIOS. Can't change value higher. It's fixed and locked.

Well, what i want to do, is change the VRAM to 4GB from 2GB or 6GB from the current locked status. I tried the regedit trick on youtube for intel hd graphics and ATI graphics, creating new key called systemsharedfolder and create a dword32 bit value doesn't work. It don't see difference in the VEGA 11 VRAM its still 2GB in BIOS and GPU Z says the 2GB vram still there not 3GB or 4GB. Well Windows 10 Pro x64 - i have features and gadgets like from Stardock and windows blinds with all components installed and it takes like 1.5GB of VRAM and leave none for games. So i only have 1.5GB VRAM available for games.

Can i please get some answere on how to change vram limit for vega 11 from fixed or locked state either using software or free trick or hack or modification. I dont have money to buy a dedicated video card. I already spend money on this PC and now im stuck and i dont like to sell my hardware. I just love this CPU anyway. Please tell me how to exceed vram limit to 8GB from system shared memory or ram. I dont mind sacrifising 8gb from 32GB.

 

[GoldenX]

It's up to the manufacturer to allow higher VRAM values in bios.
It still is an useless setting anyway, with how APIs manage VRAM nowdays. Set it to 64MB (not joking) and let the driver use the shared VRAM. You don't need to use a fixed higher value at all.

 

[raghavsood999]

No. No. I really wish to increase VRAM from 2GB to 4GB or 6GB if possible via regedit. How to do it? What are you saying? Are you saying if i change setting of vram to 64MB then if a game wishes to use 4GB of vram , even if 64MB locked in BIOS, it will take from RAM when it needs? Are you sure about that?

 

[Chrispy_]

It's up to the manufacturer to allow higher VRAM values in bios.
It still is an useless setting anyway, with how APIs manage VRAM nowdays. Set it to 64MB (not joking) and let the driver use the shared VRAM. You don't need to use a fixed higher value at all.

This.

The only thing that the BIOS setting affects is how much GPU RAM is reported to software - which can lead to some VRAM warnings, or auto-settings being set to minimum when it'll handle more.

No. No. I really wish to increase VRAM from 2GB to 4GB or 6GB if possible via regedit. How to do it? What are you saying? Are you saying if i change setting of vram to 64MB then if a game wishes to use 4GB of vram , even if 64MB locked in BIOS, it will take from RAM when it needs? Are you sure about that?

Your APU already uses as much VRAM as it wants. The 2GB setting is just how much is exclusively reserved for the APU and unavailable to the rest of your system even when your APU isn't using it for graphics. The lower than number is, the better.

 

[BSim500]

No. No. I really wish to increase VRAM from 2GB to 4GB or 6GB if possible via regedit. How to do it? What are you saying? Are you saying if i change setting of vram to 64MB then if a game wishes to use 4GB of vram , even if 64MB locked in BIOS, it will take from RAM when it needs? Are you sure about that?

That's exactly how it works. Because VRAM and RAM on APU's are the same DDR4 system memory, the "VRAM" that APU's see is just the "window" of RAM that's reserved for that. Example:-

If your game uses 2GB VRAM and 4GB RAM on a normal rig, then:-

- If you have 2GB VRAM reserved, you'll see 2GB VRAM and 4GB RAM used
- If you have 1GB VRAM reserved, you'll see 1GB VRAM and 5GB RAM used (4GB game + 1GB "VRAM" spillover as RAM)
- If you have 64MB VRAM reserved, you'll see 64MB VRAM and 5.94GB RAM used (4GB game + 1.936GB "VRAM" spillover as RAM)

What happens on any rig if you run out of VRAM, the system will assign RAM which causes slowdowns on dGPU's due to GDDR5 being pooled with to DDR4. It's just that the effect is hidden on APU's due to them both being the same and performance already much lower due to DDR4 bottleneck. Having said that, one issue with setting it too low to say 64MB is that some games are hard-coded to detect VRAM quantity and won't start / allow you to select some presets otherwise. If you're not gaming, leave it at 64MB. But if you have 16GB RAM and are gaming, personally I'd leave it at 1GB as I've seen several older games that will complain if they don't detect at least a 256-512MB "ATI" Video card.

 

[Shou Miko]

I had a Asus board once where Asus actually in a bios update decreased the VRAM from was the max VRAM allocation from 4GB or was it 2GB to 1GB of RAM.

But as said before it's up to the manufacture to set this option, if it's AsRock try their forum their employees are really activate there and the more that wants this increased if possible they will make a beta bios.

Doing a bit of research and I am not able to find the max video dedication value for Ryzen 3gen APU's but all leads to max might be only 2GB no matter if you have 16 or 32GB of system memory.

*Edit*
After a bit of research go into the bios of your motherboard and locate integrated graphics change it from Auto to Forces then UMA mode should appear then change this from Auto to UMA Specified and at last UMA Frame Buffer Size should appear and there you should be able depending on the installed system memory to set more.

 

[raghavsood999]

Ok wow so GigaByte mini itx board is capable to increase VRAM of Vega 11 through its UMA settings using the force setting eh??

Thanks for your help. Do you know which GigaByte model of motherboard is this and is the AMD RYZEN 3400G with Vega 11 decent?

 

[Shou Miko]

The one in the thumbnail of the video hos A320M-S2H Bios Ver.F23 with a AMD Ryzen 3 2200G.

 

[GoldenX]

Aorus boards allow up to 16GB, if you really want to waste RAM.

 

[raghavsood999]

The one in the thumbnail of the video hos A320M-S2H Bios Ver.F23 with a AMD Ryzen 3 2200G.

So does the Gigabyte A320M-S2H motherboard have a mini ITX version or its only micro ITX?

Im trying to find a board with form factor of mini itx and has support for UMA and assiging VRAM from RAM up to 16GB VRAM just like the Gigabyte A320M-S2H can do. (one in the video in the thumbnail)

 

[Fouquin]

It still is an useless setting anyway, with how APIs manage VRAM nowdays. Set it to 64MB (not joking) and let the driver use the shared VRAM. You don't need to use a fixed higher value at all.

This. ^

There's a misunderstanding here about how the APU uses system memory. Setting a VRAM amount does NOT limit Vega 11's available VRAM. What it does is lock that amount of RAM from the system to use, so setting 2GB VRAM means your OS has 30GB of system memory to use. Vega 11 has access to all system memory regardless of the limit set since exceeding the set limit just goes into system memory where it was already at...



There's what the limits look like in practice for APUs. Try it yourself and see that there's effectively no difference.

 

[Melvis]

What clock speed have you got your RAM at just out of interest sake?

 

[raghavsood999]

My Dual Channel RAM is DDR4 and its 3600MHz 32GB

Thanks for those replies. I just want to know what MINI ITX motherboards have the "Unified Memory Architecture" available and allow VRAM access for Vega 11 up to 16GB or more? I need specifically MINI ITX form factor NOT Micro ITX

 

[Melvis]

So you are running it at 3600MHz? thats impressive as I cant get my 2200G with 3600MHz RAM to clock or be stable much over 3333MHz.

 

[raghavsood999]

It's becuase 2200 APU maybe supports under 3000MHz and 3400G APU has Vega 11 and that has support for 3000MHz or higher frequencies. I checked on the specifications for my processor and a friend told me the lower Vega 8 iGPU don't have support for 3600MHz speed.

 

[GoldenX]

My Dual Channel RAM is DDR4 and its 3600MHz 32GB

Thanks for those replies. I just want to know what MINI ITX motherboards have the "Unified Memory Architecture" available and allow VRAM access for Vega 11 up to 16GB or more? I need specifically MINI ITX form factor NOT Micro ITX

The driver will set a hard limit of combined dedicated and shared VRAM at 50% of RAM. The board is irrelevant, you can get an A320 or an X570 and it is the same.

Regarding the APU RAM support, it's not dependent of the version of the GPU, be it Vega 11 or Vega 8, what determines the max RAM clock speed support is the generation of the Zen architecture they are based on. The 2200G an 2400G are Zen1, so they top out at 3200 to 3400MHz, while the 3200G and 3400G are Zen+, reaching up to 3400 to 3600MHz, more or less. It's silicon lottery at that point.