Aerial View Maps - What are the uses of having a 256 MB or higher video card other than gaming?

What are the uses of having a 256 MB or higher video card other than gaming?

I'm planning to probably get a new computer, since mine is an old 2000 Pentium III model, with very slow speed (666 mhz), no firewire ports and no separate video card. But I wonder, will it be necessary to get a PC with a good (brand name) video card, with at least 256 MB in it? I'm not interested in gaming, by the way, but I'm interested in high-resolution image and video-editing; high-resolution real-time satellite-image viewing (like google maps, etc.) and high-resolution TV or video watching on my PC. So I don't know if the software required for high-resolution image and video editing will require a good video card with some memory in it, separated from the rest of the system, to work better and not make the system run out of memory and stall. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Public Comments

An EVGA 8600GT will serve you just fine and it will future proff your PC for a good while!
I do not think you will need a graphics card with more than 256 MB of memory since you are not interested in gaming. Actually, I think that even if you were, you wouldn't need a card with more than 256 MB of memory to play the games the games that are currently in the market. Besides, most PCs nowadays come with a card with 256 MB. So go for a 256 MB graphics card. Hope this helps.
You would be hard pressed to find a new video card with less then 256mb. This is pretty standard these days. If you did get a 128mb, you might run the risk of it filling up too fast and causing stuttering while you watch movies or such. If you plan to never do any gaming, I dont think the 8600 would be needed. The lowest class geforce 8400 should do the trick just fine. If you dont want to spend the cash, you should be able to get by without a discrete graphics card.
Well I have a 256 MB Nvidia graphics card and it's good. The graphics card doen't really enhance the graphics but it speeds the rendering up. Having a flat panel 20" monitor is very helping for the graphics and entertaimnet viewing.