More video memory = more memory usage?

[Dutch Guy]

Last night I was using Rivatuner to log when playing Fallout 3 and I was amazed to see the memoryusage spike to 955MB which is still fine as I have a GTX280 with 1024MB but I can remember the memoryusage being much lower when I had a 8800GTS with 640MB

So is it true that the more video memory is available the more memory is being used by a game?

 

[Dutch Guy]

From what I know of Windows processes - then yes, you're correct - your system RAM will be getting swapped out with more and more chunks of RAM data from the Video card, back and forth - especially with a game like Fallout 3, with a lot of large textures.

Wouldn't worry - thats what the RAM's there for

But I am talking about video memory usage, not system memory, the game is using up to 955MB of videocard memory.

I guess the game and system see that there is more memory free and decide to use it, I was testing some better texture packs for Megaton and Rivet City but found that Rivet City with 2048x2048 textures was a bit too much, even for an overclocked GTX280