How-to view the amount of Video RAM on Linux

From openSUSE

Short answer

grep -i ram /var/log/Xorg.0.log; grep -i mem /var/log/Xorg.0.log

Long answer

Unfortunately, unlike Windows, Linux OS has no easy way to view the amount of Video RAM. After long discussion and community debates about different possible commands, (like lspci, KInfoCenter...) the command above was the only one to be found stable (i.e. works on all tested systems, other commands break on different systems).

So scanning the log file of X Window System is the only reliable answer so far. I hope a feature to view VRAM will be integrated into Yast at some point in the future.

This info is sometimes important to know. Especially given the fact that some old ATI and S3 cards do not display their Video BIOS/RAM on boot.

If you just wanna know which device you are running you can use either:

sax2 -p

-or-

lspci -v -v

NOTE I have tested dozens of commands. Some fail on nVidia, some on ATI cards, some on VMware virtual driver. I found no 100% reliable way to view the amount of video RAM. If you think you have found such a command, feel free to email me at: al4321@gmail.com