Notes on Video RAM
The ability to display large images on a video monitor depends on the
amount of video RAM available on the video card. For example, if the
display resolution is
with only 8 bits (1 byte) of color per pixel, the minimum required amount of
video RAM is 0.79 Mb. However, working with only 8 bits per pixel is
paltry, because it only allows for 256 simultaneous colors on the
screen at one time.
Increasing the color depth to 16 bits (2 bytes) at
a resolution of
doubles the required video RAM to
1.57 Mb. This is really the minimum video RAM required to get
reasonable performance from the GIMP, and a higher-performance system
might have a resolution of
with 24 bits (3 bytes) of color per pixel, requiring at least 5.76 Mb of
video RAM.
