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[synapse]

I'm working on a simulation-heavy economic game in C++, and I'm trying to figure out how big I can make it given common memory and computational limits.  It's pretty clear when cpu usage gets too high...but what's a good upper limit on memory usage?  I'm at about 50mb right now.

On a related note, what's a good upper limit on video card memory used for textures and such?

[Kekskiller]

edit: 32 mb vram or even less is probably more realistic for older PCs

I agree. My secondhand laptop has just 16 MB VRAM - 1024x768x4 bytes screen memory. AND there's often the possibility to extend VRAM with normal RAM. Most small game PCs will have at least 512 MB RAM. So don't worry about your RAM usage.

I suggest:
normal PCs: max. 100MB RAM, max. 32MB VRAM
gaming PCs: max. 300MB RAM, max, 100MB VRAM (like 128 MB graphic cards)
laptops: max. 100MB RAM (they normally tend to have much more parallel working software), max. 16 MB VRAM