Having a 256 will change...?

[McFly]

I have a geforce fx 5600, ya i know, its not the bes, i dont need ppl to tell me that in this thread. But i wold like to know what i can use the 256 mb for. Will it ba able to run more textures, or higher textures at the same speed as if it were lesser? or something?..........ya....

 

[DreamThrall]

....OR....

You could have typed "128MB 256MB" into that handy-dandy search feature and you would have found this:

http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=28738&highlight=128MB+256MB

edit: ...and this:
http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=28060&highlight=128MB+256MB

edit again: and this as well:
http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=25234&highlight=128MB+256MB

this too:
http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=23771&highlight=128MB+256MB

here's another:
http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=21442&highlight=128MB+256MB

 

[Asus]

The thing is that last years cards won't really be able to use the extra memory as it's performance would be rather low.
Sure, you could reduce the compression on D3 and run it with less compressed textures but it will run pretty slow, it would run slow anyway though.

That's why spending more money (~50-100$ more) on a 256MB card back then was not a good investment. For the cards today that can perform very well in the near future games, they can actually make real use of the 256MB.