The memory fitted to the graphics card is completely separate from the main system memory on the computer. You need at least 1 megabyte(Mb) on the graphics card. With a 17'' monitor it becomes practicable to use a screen resolution of around 1024 by 768, but a 1 Mb graphics card will have to reduce the number of colours it provide in order to work at this resolution, so a graphics card with 2 Mb is required. In this case, it's worth looking for graphics cards sold with VRam memory, rather than the cheaper DRam type of memory. VRam memory is about fifty percent faster than DRam so when you're working in higher resolutions using 2 Mb memory, which requires a lot of dots to be shuffled around the screen, VRam will improve graphics performance.
