Overcoming 32 bit RAM limit

[bear2777]

Hi I've had a Dell laptop computer for a couple of years now and I wanted to upgrade to something more fitting with some of the games I play. I know the specs and what computer I want however, I'm a little confused about the 32 bit and 64 bit operating systems and their RAM limits.

Q1 What are the RAM cababilites of 32 bit and 64 bit?

Q2 Some of my games are a few years old and since I'm considering a 64 bit OS will my older games/programs be able to run?

Q3 The RAM I'm going for is either 6 or 8GB so I'm kinda stuffed if the 32 bit OS can't fully utilise that or is that not the case?

I'm also probably going for vista and then getting windows 7 but might wait for windows 7 to come out first.

 

[Scotteq]

Q1 What are the RAM cababilites of 32 bit and 64 bit?

For desktop versions:

Vistax64 (basic) - 8GB
Vista x64 (Home Premium) - 16GB
Vista x64 (Business/Enterprise/Ultimate) - 128GB

Vista x86 and XP x86: 4GB*

*Be advised there is more than just RAM that uses this capacity, so the 'real life limit' is somewhere in the vicinity of 3GB of actual memory - depending on your configuration.

Q2 Some of my games are a few years old and since I'm considering a 64 bit OS will my older games/programs be able to run?

Most games will run just fine, unless they're *really* old and have 16 bit code.

Q3 The RAM I'm going for is either 6 or 8GB so I'm kinda stuffed if the 32 bit OS can't fully utilise that or is that not the case?

It is possible to use a SERVER version of XP, implement PAE mode, and have that kind of memory capacity. But as a practical matter you're far better off not bothering with a 32 bit OS at all if your intended build includes this kind of memory capacity.