regarding ram usage on 32-bit os?

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Euklion

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Nov 22, 2014
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Hello!

I've always used 32-bit systems, ever since my first PC back in 2004, but nowadays it seems certain games and applications require you to have 64-bit OS (probably because they need full 4 or more GB of RAM). As I am still financially unable to upgrade to 64-bit OS, I've been looking around internet to see if there is any way to bypass the RAM limit on 32-bit systems.

I currently have Windows 8.1 Professional with 2.92 GB (out of 4 GB) of RAM usable. That is good (not perfect) for most of the games I play, and on some games like Assassin's Creed 3 and Arma 3 i feel that lack of RAM (in form of lag and stutter). But such RAM makes it harder for me to keep more applications open at the same time.

Once I found somewhere on the internet that the 4 GB limit set by 32-bit OS actually means every software on that PC can use up to 4 GB of RAM out of any amount of RAM you have installed in your PC. So would that mean I can have 8 GB of RAM installed and rest peacefully knowing that if I open 2 more intensive programs each of them will have their own 4 GB of RAM to use? Is such thing even possible? Or is 64-bit OS the only solution to opening up for more than 4 GB of RAM?

I'm sorry if my question is unclear, as though I know a thing or two about PC stuff, English is not my native language so it is rather hard for me to form a question related to such topic.

Thank you :)
 
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Like ThatVietGuy said,
The only way to get more usable memory is to upgrade to 64-bit OS.
Every other option is more expensive like say, getting faster memory to compensate.

However, i need to ask if you have bought a boxed Windows 8.1 retail version or if it came pre-installed.
If you bought the Windows 8.1 there should be 2 discs, a 32-bit version and the 64-bit version you want.
I think you would've done that by yourself but i'm just throwing it out there just in case.

If it came pre-installed you might want to ask whoever build it for you if they have the copy still lying around, they should be able to upgrade it using the same activation key.

If it came pre-installed and you bought it off a big store-chain like Walmart or Media-markt then they won't do anything for you i'm afraid.

Hope this helps

EDIT: Regarding your second question.
Sadly the structure of a 32-bit system makes it litterally impossible to use more than the limit.
That means that if you have, let's say 16gb of memory installed your programms won't split those up in handy 4gb chunks, so you have 4x4GB.
It means that your OS can only allocate 4GB to any requesting programs at any given time, it's impossible for your OS to allocate more than that to any number of programs, so in reality out of your 16gb running 4 programs it wouldn't be 4x4GB, but only 4x1GB and 12GB sitting in a corner doing nothing.
 
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ITT: People who don't know how memory works.

Intel's microprocessors have supported a physical address space larger than 32-bits since 1995 using a technology known as Physical Address Extension. When enabled, PAE extends the physical address space up to 36 bits on most platforms which allows the operating system to manage up to 64 GiB of total physical memory (including MMIO). Windows has supported PAE in the NT kernel since Windows 2000 Server and it is enabled by default on microprocessors that have hardware enforced Data Execution Prevention (DEP). In fact, 32-bit versions of Windows 8 require PAE support and will not operate on microprocessors that do not support DEP.

There are two caveats to PAE.

1. Even though PAE extends the size of the physical address space, it does not extend the virtual address space. The virtual address space remains at 32-bits when in Protected mode which means that a running process can only address 4GiB of total memory even though the system as a whole can support much more. This limits usefulness on desktops but is very handy for servers that have multiple memory-hungry applications running at a time.

2. 32-bit client versions of Windows NT (Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8) are limited to 4GiB of physical address space regardless of whether or not PAE is enabled. This was initially done to provide consumers relief for buggy drivers written by incompetent fools but more recently it has become purely a marketing tactic to push consumers to adopt the more robust and easier to maintain 64 bit versions of Windows. It was possible to patch the kernel to remove this artificial limitation, but this patch is unsupported. 32-bit server versions of Windows NT are not affected by this limitation.
 
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Thank you for your answers!

@Pinhedd you clearly state at the beginning of your post that "Intel's microprocessors..." can use PAE, which would I guess mean that my AMD FX8150 cannot do the same. Am I right?

By the way, I have already tried the kernel patch on Windows 8 few weeks ago and that taught me not to mess with Windows code. I had to reinstall my Windows afterwards... :/

@Cotton_ It was an upgrade made using Microsoft Upgrade Assistant from windows XP, and since I had 32-bit XP I got 32-bit Windows 8, which is really ashame and I could've avoided it if I had researched a bit before doing so (I'm talking about loopholes in that method), but what can you do.

I guess I'll just have to buy a 64-bit version soon as I'm really not keen to fiddling with code and switching stuff on and off without being fully aware of the consenquences (as happened with kernel patch).

Thanks again!
 
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AMD started supporting PAE with the Athlon series of microprocessors. A little bit later than Intel, but they do still support it. Even when PAE is supported though (by either AMD or Intel), many older chipsets were still limited to 4GiB of installed memory by virtue of firmware; in these cases, PAE might help free up some of the memory that get's clobbered by MMIO, or it might do nothing at all.

Since the mid 2000s both AMD and Intel have supported 64 bit extensions called AMD64 and Intel 64 respectively. Both of these extensions further extend the physical address space up to a maximum of 52 bits although most microprocessors are much lower than this. For example, Intel's Xeon-E3 microprocessors (and desktop equivalents) are 39 bits, Xeon-E5 microprocessors (and desktop equivalents) are 40 bits, and Xeon-E7 microprocessors are 44 bits. This is a function of the architecture, so it can vary over time and across platforms.

If you have a valid Windows 8 product key, including one that's been upgraded from a previous edition such as Windows XP, you may use it to install either the 32-bit version of the operating system or the 64-bit version of the operating system. You need not purchase a new licence, just get your hands on the proper installation media.

One way to go about doing this is to download a 64-bit free trial of Windows 7, install it, and then run the Windows 8 upgrade tool to obtain the 64-bit installation media.
 
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