>>>> requirement of 1GB for years.) What is worse, the RAM is shared by the
>>>> CPU
>>>> and the GPU, in other words, the GPU doesn't have its own RAM (as is
>>>> customary in a PC). This means that graphics and other game data
>>>> have to
>>>> share the 512 MB

>> It has advantages though, like not needing to transfer any data between
>> the CPU RAM and the GPU RAM (which is a major bottle-neck in a PC,
>> causing many complex algorithms to be developed). On the xbox the CPU
>> can update textures and meshes directly without needing to either write
>> a complex vertex/pixel shader or transfer over large amounts of data
>> per-frame.
>
> Not at all in the case of the PCs. The GPU don't see the memory used by
> the CPU, and the CPU don't see the memory used by the GPU.

I don't know about PCs with shared memory (I can imagine they are not 
designed for gaming speed!), I was talking about the xbox360, which is 
specifically designed for gaming speed (with compromises that wouldn't 
work for a normal PC).

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