2gb to 4gb of memory

[rammedstein]

well, the number varies on what your are doing, windows will automatically allocate the maximum amount it can, on a fresh clean install of windows vista home premium 32bit my rig shows up as having 3773Mb of ram, which i see is good enough, because when you switch over to 64bit you get approx 10% overhead on top of memory used, so i would loose 402mb of memory at max usage if i went 64bit but in 32 bit i only loose 323mb, so at that stage, it is better for me to use 32bit.

 

[mkaibear]

Dan from Dansdata put a good article together;

http://www.dansdata.com/askdan00015.htm

 

[powerbaselx]

Dan from Dansdata put a good article together;

http://www.dansdata.com/askdan00015.htm

Absolutelly shocked!! 8O

XP&Vista sucks! Vista sometimes can't install in a 4GB RAM system?? Must remove physically ate least 1GB to install, and then put back!! LOL!!

Another thing: i have 1GB RAM installed. According to the article, since i've got a 512MB graphic card, then it eats another 512MB in the RAM leaving the rest 512MB to the system... i didn't remember this fact....

 

[mkaibear]

>according to the article

No, you've missed the point. That 512Mb of mapped address space comes from the 1Gb between 3Gb and 4Gb.

Basically there's 1Gb "reserved" space in your 4Gb theretical max for 32-bit Windows. That reserved space is for devices, including graphics cards.

That's why Windows will usually only see 3Gb of an installed 4Gb!

 

[dengamle]

Just to be clear on this. You can't use PAE on desktop Windows to go beyond 4GB of physical memory.

The /3GB can be useful, if your memory-hungry application has been compiled to use it. Then it can access 3GB of virtual memory instead of 2GB.

/3GB has no impact on how the physical memory space is populated

 

[powerbaselx]

>according to the article

No, you've missed the point. That 512Mb of mapped address space comes from the 1Gb between 3Gb and 4Gb.

Basically there's 1Gb "reserved" space in your 4Gb theretical max for 32-bit Windows. That reserved space is for devices, including graphics cards.

That's why Windows will usually only see 3Gb of an installed 4Gb!

So is it just the addressing space we're talking here? There is no physical duplication of the 512MB graphic memory in RAM?
In my case, where i have only 1GB RAM, i still have about 1GB for applications with the 512MB graphic card?

 

[dengamle]

So is it just the addressing space we're talking here? There is no physical duplication of the 512MB graphic memory in RAM?
In my case, where i have only 1GB RAM, i still have about 1GB for applications with the 512MB graphic card?

Yes, it's only about addresses. Memory mapped IO is about placing IO units in the CPU's memory address space. The same memory space where RAM is placed.

As long as 4GB is enough to hold both DRAM and memory mapped IO there are no problems

 

[lilblam]

May be a silly question but, a 64-bit OS resolves all such issues right? With 64-bit Vista for example, if my mobo supports it, I could have 8gigs, 16gigs, etc of RAM that are fully utilized for my needs? I could have more than 2 gigs used by a single application etc?

 

[dengamle]

May be a silly question but, a 64-bit OS resolves all such issues right? With 64-bit Vista for example, if my mobo supports it, I could have 8gigs, 16gigs, etc of RAM that are fully utilized for my needs? I could have more than 2 gigs used by a single application etc?

By itself the 64-bit OS doesn't solve it. By tradition MMIO is allocated from the 4GB address boundary and down. RAM goes from 0 and up. When 4GB or more RAM is installed, the MMIO and some of the RAM will overlap, and this portion of RAM will be useless.

Newer boards have some way of moving the resources around. Memory remapping will move some of the RAM up and above the 4GB address boundary.

Virtual memory space: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/294418

 

[powerbaselx]

Newer boards have some way of moving the resources around. Memory remapping will move some of the RAM up and above the 4GB address boundary.

I noticed in the specs of some motherboards i checked that they support up to 8GB RAM (including some with 965 chipset). Probably this requires specific drivers for Windows so it can see up to 8GB, right?

 

[JackNaylorPE]

The problem for me is OS. Buying an OS during a transitional period sucks. The old one becomes obsolete and phased out with new features and things that only work on the new OS. But the new OS is buggy, has driver issues, and has serious compatibility issues with many games and peripherals and programs. It's like being between a rock and a hard place - either way you lose and don't get all the features either due to bugginess/compatibility issues, or because of being phased out and obsoletion. I'd say if you have XP, keep it till at least SP1 for Vista comes out.

Joe Corporate IT Manual, Page 4

Definitions:

OS Beta - All versions Prior to SP3

 

[leexgx]

if you use the 64 bit ver of windows (XP x64 or Vista Home prem or higher) you can have 8gb of ram (you can buy 2gb ram now per stick so 4 of them get you 8gb ram) why you think ram need drivers is intresting as ram needs no drivers you just need the 64 bit vers of windows

but to use 8gb of ram in an program it Needs to be 64 bit program or it only be able to use 2gb of the 8gb but there is nothing stopping you starting 3 more programs that use all the 8gb up

 

[Mondoman]

...
I noticed in the specs of some motherboards i checked that they support up to 8GB RAM (including some with 965 chipset). Probably this requires specific drivers for Windows so it can see up to 8GB, right?

Not drivers. You need:
1) a MB/chipset that supports 8GB or more RAM
2) a BIOS that supports memory remapping (so the hardware at the top of the larger address space, rather than under the 4GB mark).
3) a 64-bit version of Windows
4) a 64-bit CPU (of course!)

The practical problem is normally (2) above. Some MB manufacturers are better than others at including the memory remapping feature in the BIOS.

 

[MacDuff]

Well I do have SLI, but it's not enabled all the time. It's only enabled when I am playing video games or possibly using design software. I noticed last night that stardocks software slows down my system a little bit as well. However, since I changed anti-virus the system starts much faster.

The reason that I mentioned SLI is because multiple video cards, each with 256MB of ram will occupy quite a lot of the virtual address space, which in turn effectively hides the physical RAM from the operating system.

 

[bliq]

anything greater than 3 gigs you'll need a 64 bit os.. vista 64 or xp 64.. not 100% about linux environments tho, but for windows it's a definate.

4x1GB sticks will show up as ~3,564MB or something like that. The RAM is available but the addresses it would use are taken up by other system resources.