What is this guy talking about: 3or6GB better than 4gb

[itstemo1]

The system I show him has 2x 2GB DDR2 sticks

"sweet, it helps a little, but look into some articles on the problem with windows and 4gb of ram. Windows allocates about .75 GB in the 3-4Gb memory address space for I/O and it makes that part of the RAM unusable. So generally I tell people to get 3 or 6gb of ram if they want. It will give you about 250mb extra of usable ram, and it will also make the other stick of ram work faster if it's matched dual channel ram. So there are benefits to have 4gb over 3, but you might look into the problem to see if you want to do anything about it."

Oh I understand that 32-bit vista doesn't use all 4GB

[smokie mcpott]

tell him he can put 16gb of ram in a system, but if its running a 32bit OS (ANY OS, not just windows) it will only recognize a total of 4gb....tell him to STFU and educate himself first

[Diddyu]

Probably some BS theory as to why a 32 bit operating system only reads ~3-3.5 GB of ram when you have 4 GB in the system.
What operating system will you be using, and what is your current system (if you know)?

[itstemo1]

Vista 32-bit edition.

[Diddyu]

With 32bit, having anything over 3.something wont make a difference, so I wouldnt buy any more ram.

[th3]

tell him he can put 16gb of ram in a system, but if its running a 32bit OS (ANY OS, not just windows) it will only recognize a total of 4gb....tell him to STFU and educate himself first

would be a good idea to get your own facts straight first, THEN tell others to stfu.

[Diddyu]

would be a good idea to get your own facts straight first, THEN tell others to stfu.

What is wrong with his statement?
(2^32)/1024^3 = 4, meaning that 4gb is the absolute max for a 32 bit OS.

[g14novak]

Actually Vista released a hotfix so you can have 4.0gb on 32-bit vista. To have more, you have to have a 64-bit os though.

[silencer51]

What is wrong with his statement?
(2^32)/1024^3 = 4, meaning that 4gb is the absolute max for a 32 bit OS.

4gb is the max total for ALL addressable memory in 32bit Windows.

Addressable memory includes graphics card memory, drive buffers etc.

So you have 4gb of RAM minus graphics card memory (i.e. 512MB) minus drive caches etc. and you end up with around 3-3,25gb of RAM detected by the OS.

So technically th3 is correct (I think he meant the above)

[smokie mcpott]

would be a good idea to get your own facts straight first, THEN tell others to stfu.

how?
the OP stated that 'this guy' said that he tells people to get 3 or 6gb....whats the point of 6gb if the OS will only see 4 and address 3-3.25 of it? maybe he worded it wrong, or you are misinterpreting things, but i know what i read
So generally I tell people to get 3 or 6gb of ram if they want.

i still stand by my statement....educate me, oh great one

lol, i understand how all of this works, i dont need you to tell me to get my facts straight without you actually stating any facts....never once did i see you state anything, but tell me to get my s*** straight

[Diddyu]

I see, I thought he was saying something else. Well, I think the question has been answered, but if anyone has something else to add, please do.

[Mathis]

Everyone needs to move to 64 bit already so that this argument is no longer an issue lol. I didn't realize memory restrictions myself until my last build, but it was what made me do 64 vista and I really enjoy it along with trying to use up all of my 8gb of memory.

[Blazing fire]

4gb is the max total for ALL addressable memory in 32bit Windows.

Addressable memory includes graphics card memory, drive buffers etc.

So you have 4gb of RAM minus graphics card memory (i.e. 512MB) minus drive caches etc. and you end up with around 3-3,25gb of RAM detected by the OS.

So technically th3 is correct (I think he meant the above)

Assume my game uses 3gb and I have my idle apps using .25gb, would I see a diff between 4gb and 3gb?

[Diddyu]

Possibly, although I dont think that you would actually see that theoretical circumstance.

[th3]

32bit OS can adress up to 64GB RAM, thats found also on 32bit windows servers. The memory adress bus of modern 32bit CPUs is 36bit wide and has been so since the Pentium Pro (thats pretty long ago). Now windows desktops doesnt even support a full 4GB RAM, but thats different from saying "no32bit OS". I use 32bit Linux kernel with PAE support and it works very well, i prefer it over 64bit for compatibility and software support. Without PAE im limited to 3.2GB, 8GB with PAE (mainboard limitation)

[Diddyu]

Reading up, I think its possible to use PAE with XP, however, I dont see the reason to do it.

[Niku-Sama]

i think all this 32 bit 3 gig limit is just a bunch of mumbo jumbo....its like FAT32 onlybeing able to format drives up to 32gigs...we all know that isnt the case any more. in given time there will be a work arround for it

[hansen]

32bit OS can adress up to 64GB RAM, thats found also on 32bit windows servers.

Datacenter R2 actually goes all the way up to 128GB.

i think all this 32 bit 3 gig limit is just a bunch of mumbo jumbo....its like FAT32 onlybeing able to format drives up to 32gigs...we all know that isnt the case any more. in given time there will be a work arround for it

That would require someone to alter the programming stored in the memory manager

[Mpegger]

Reading up, I think its possible to use PAE with XP, however, I dont see the reason to do it.

True. If I remember correctly, in standard XP (not Server editions), the maximum amount of memory any program can use is 2GiB. So even if you had 4GiB addressable, a program could still only use 2GiB of it.

However, if I were able to actually use 8GiB in a XP Pro environment, I'd probably allocate 4 to 5GiB as a special ram cache for specific drives, and leave the remaining 3 to 4GiB of ram free for the OS and all running aps, plus XPs own built in caching. Sould be some good loading speed improvements for the many games I play. :sn:

Then again, because the 32bit Hardware is still limited to only 4GiB addressable, anything over that limit addressed by the OS would be done by swapping the memory range around, so only 4GiB would still be addressable at any one time, which would probably kill any speed improvements I could get with a ram Cache that big. :(

[hansen]

Then again, because the 32bit Hardware is still limited to only 4GiB addressable, anything over that limit addressed by the OS would be done by swapping the memory range around, so only 4GiB would still be addressable at any one time, which would probably kill any speed improvements I could get with a ram Cache that big. :(

That is the whole point: the physical address space is not limited to 4GB, when you go into PAE mode. And there is no swapping involved.

[nookuwn]

kind of off topic, but...

What's the advantage with 64bit over 32bit OSs beside higher memory addressing?

I thought, 64bit eventually improve very application performance. It came out for so long now, doesn't seem to be the case anymore.

[Neuromancer]

If a piece of software is written in 64 bit and not just a 32 bit port then you can expect a 10-15% performance boost IIRC.

More stability, less malware.

[smokie mcpott]

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEdrv.mspx

Windows XP (all versions) 4 GB of physical RAM*

Windows Server 2003 (and SP1), Standard Edition 4 GB of physical RAM*



* Total physical address space is limited to 4 GB on these versions of Windows.



allow me to rephrase what i said then
NO 32BIT DESKTOP OS WILL SEE BEYOND 4GB.... period


so again, i ask, what is the point of recommending 6gb of ram to someone when their 32bit DESKTOP OS will only see 4gb?

i dont exactly see Joe SixPack out snatching up all the Windows Server 2003 SP1's just so they can use more than 4gb on their desktop...that would be quite costly