Linux: Find Out Video Card Memory RAM Size Using Command Line Utility

April 18, 2007August 2, 2011in CentOS, Debian / Ubuntu, Linux, RedHat and Friends, Suse, Troubleshooting, Ubuntu Linux last updated August 2, 2011

I have a quick question for you, Vivek: I’m trying to find out my NVDIA display card memory size. Iâ€™m using Fedora Core Linux. How do I find out my VIDEO Card Memory size?

You need to use the following commands to find out graphics card memory.

lspci command – It is a utility for displaying information about all PCI buses in the system and all devices connected to them.
/var/log/Xorg.0.log – Xorg log file

lspci Command Example To Find Out Graphics Card Memory Size

Open a terminal and type the lspci command
$ lspci
Output:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE/PE DRAM Controller/Host-Hub Interface (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-M) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev 82)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL (ICH4/ICH4-L) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801DB (ICH4) IDE Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 02)
01:00.0 Network controller: RaLink RT2561/RT61 rev B 802.11g
01:02.0 Multimedia video controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Video Capture (rev 11)
01:02.1 Multimedia controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Audio Capture (rev 11)
01:05.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)

You need to use string called devices in the specified domain – 00:02.0 VGA (highlighted in red color to display memory info):
$ lspci -v -s 00:02.0
Sample outputs:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device (rev 03) (prog-if 00 [VGA])
        Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Unknown device 2562
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 177
        Memory at d0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
        Memory at d8200000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512K]
        Capabilities:

This listing shows an Intel video card with 128 MB of video RAM. If you cannot find devices in the specified domain use following command and look for your display card name and memory field:
$ lspci -v | less

Xorg Log File

Open a command-line terminal (select Applications > Accessories > Terminal), and then type:
$ grep -i --color memory /var/log/Xorg.0.log
Sample outputs:

(--) Aug 02 12:16:20 NVIDIA(0): Memory: 1048576 kBytes
(II) Aug 02 12:16:21 NVIDIA: Using 768.00 MB of virtual memory for indirect memory access.
(==) NVIDIA(0): Disabling shared memory pixmaps

The above output indicate that my Nvidia card has 1024MB ram. The following is taken from my Macbook, which has Intel GM965 Video card. It shares memory from main RAM:
$ grep -i memory /var/log/Xorg.0.log
Sample outputs:

[2318869.434] (II) intel(0): detected 15868 kB stolen memory.
[2318869.472] (II) intel(0): I830CheckAvailableMemory: 1966080 kB available
[2318869.486] (II) intel(0): Attempting memory allocation with tiled buffers.
[2318870.197] (II) intel(0): Fixed memory allocation layout:
[2318870.197] (II) intel(0): 0x00f7f000:            end of stolen memory
[2318870.197] (II) intel(0): 0x00f7f000-0x0fffffff: DRI memory manager (246276 kB)
[2318870.197] (II) intel(0): BO memory allocation layout:
[2318870.197] (II) intel(0): 0x00f7f000:            start of memory manager
[2318870.197] (II) intel(0): 0x10000000:            end of memory manager

Posted by: Vivek Gite

The author is the creator of nixCraft and a seasoned sysadmin and a trainer for the Linux operating system/Unix shell scripting. He has worked with global clients and in various industries, including IT, education, defense and space research, and the nonprofit sector. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook, Google+.

29 comment

winrid says:
August 3, 2008 at 4:50 pm
How do I check the amount of video card memory being used?
Reply Report comment
Fox says:
August 21, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Thx, that helped me, but waht means “access denied” after the “capabilities”? That means my vga card is not in use? (I think)
Reply Report comment
1. sherif says:
  April 16, 2011 at 8:44 am
  try sudo
  Reply Report comment
2. Kandi Klover says:
  March 23, 2014 at 10:20 pm
  heheh ur a furry <3 murr
  Reply Report comment
  1. jeff says:
    April 26, 2017 at 5:34 pm
    fucking weird
    Reply Report comment
dibber says:
September 7, 2008 at 6:28 pm
Thank you but can you clarify; how do you view video memory in use additionally?
When I follow the above instructions, I get a much lower amount of memory than I know what is on this particular video card. The need for this is when I don’t know how much memory; on a laptop for instance.
@Fox
I don’t know why exactly the capabilities require root privs but that seems to be the case. Try:
sudo lspci -v -s 00:02.0
Reply Report comment
Frans van Beckel says:
September 14, 2008 at 8:13 am
what means â€œaccess deniedâ€ after the â€œcapabilitiesâ€?
Do use superuser. #sudo lspci -v -s 00:02.0
Reply Report comment
luke says:
October 20, 2008 at 7:39 pm
how do i find how much memory my video card has?
Reply Report comment
Danny G says:
March 20, 2009 at 1:55 am
You could also do:
```
lspci -v | grep VGA -A12
```
To focus the -v option right to the VGA adapter
Reply Report comment
leo says:
October 26, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Hi,
for this example the output of your video card is the same as the one ‘m using, and I cannot find the correct intel video driver (the one currently install keeps crashing every so often) which video driver did you install –for Intel Corporation 82845G/GL?
I’m using arch linux
Thanks.
Reply Report comment

[[email protected] admin]$ sudo grep -i mem /var/log/XFree86.0.log|grep VESA
(II) VESA(0): VESA VBE Total Mem: 8000 kB
(II) VESA(0): Total Memory: 125 64KB banks (8000kB)
(II) VESA(0): VESA VBE Total Mem: 8000 kB

For Xorg:

grep -i mem /var/log/Xorg.0.log |grep VESA

Saludos desde Argentina!

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raj says:
April 6, 2010 at 7:21 am
how to run .exe files in linux?
Reply Report comment
1. Hashmatullah says:
  October 10, 2010 at 5:00 pm
  You cannot run .exe files under UNIX/Linux operating systems. These .exe files are solely created for Windows Operating Systems. You have something else instead of .exe files under Linux and they are called .rpm files which are the executable formats, do not be confused with the definition of executable and .exe file.
  Reply Report comment
  1. Propeng says:
    October 30, 2010 at 9:42 am
    No. RPM files are just archives (packages) of software, and they are meant to be used on Red Hat-based distros (such as Fedora and CentOS). Linux executable files do not have a specific extension, but are usually in the ELF format. You can also “execute” interpreted scripts, such as shell and Python scripts.
    Reply Report comment
    1. Hashmatullah says:
      October 30, 2010 at 5:34 pm
      Well, when first i landed to the Unix world, i would assume that everything will be the same as is in Windows Operating Systems. Reluctantly I would try to install some proprietary graphics software coded for Windows Platform and I would receive some obscure and absurd response from my Linux machine. This is the case that a newbie assumes that he/she is able to do the same in both platforms. Albeit, I have to mention that if someone really wants to know the intricacy of operating systems then the best book to start with is “Modern Operating Systems” by venerable Andrews S. Tanenbaum.
      Reply Report comment
2. raj kumar says:
  April 28, 2013 at 12:04 pm
  if you have binary .exe then use wine
  or if .net .exe use mono to run exe that my personal experience
  Reply Report comment

This is what I’m using in one of my scripts. And as the comments say, it doesn’t always return the correct value.

###############################################################################
# Function  : guess_video_memory
# Parameters: none
# A sloppy function to attempt to retrieve video memory.  This is known to be
# incorrect in some cases, although the value returned should never be higher
# than actual. If you know a better way, please email it to me!
###############################################################################
guess_video_memory() {
    test -x /usr/sbin/lspci || return 1
    slot="$(/usr/sbin/lspci | grep "VGA compatible controller:" | awk '{print $1}')"
    test -n "${slot}" || return 1
    let videomem="$(/usr/sbin/lspci -vs ${slot} |
        egrep ' prefetchable\) \[size=[0-9]+M' |
        perl -pe 's/.*size=([0-9]+)M.*/$1/g')" || return 1
    return 0
}