RAM and Vista

abstractposer

abstractposer

New Member
I want to upgrade my 2gb system to 4gb. I was just wondering if Vista Home Premium 32bit can support 4gb? I think somebody told me it can't, so I am just wondering.
 
2048Megabytes

2048Megabytes

Active Member
Windows Vista 32-bit will only recognize and utilize about 3328 megabytes (3.25 gigabytes) of random access memory. It's one of the limitations of a 32-bit operating system. I wouldn't worry about it. 3.25 gigabytes is plenty of memory.
 
2048Megabytes

2048Megabytes

Active Member
nyhk said:
It is not really a 32-bit operating system limitation, but a decision Microsoft made.
Click to expand...

A 32-bit Operating System running on binary simply means you can have 2 to the 32nd power possible physical memory addresses. 2 to the 32nd power = 4,294,967,296 bytes (4 gigabytes).

A 64-bit Operating System does not have the physical memory address lower limitation a 32-bit Operating System does.

Now, something I don't understand is why 32-bit XP or 32-bit Vista doesn't utilize the full 4,096 megabytes of memory it should be able to.
 
N

nyhk

New Member
2^32 is always true when talking about virtual address space. The physical one, the one that holds your ram and other stuff, can be much larger than that.
 
2048Megabytes

2048Megabytes

Active Member
nyhk said:
2^32 is always true when talking about virtual address space. The physical one, the one that holds your ram and other stuff, can be much larger than that.
Click to expand...

Physical RAM space can be much larger than 4 gigabytes, but a 32-bit Operating System creates an address space that is either 4 gigabytes or smaller. The software cannot address the hardware if it is larger 4 gigabytes. A 64-bit Operating System can address the RAM hardware if it is larger 4 gigabytes.
 
2048Megabytes

2048Megabytes

Active Member
nyhk said:
A 32-bit Operating System can do the same. PAE is often used for that.
Click to expand...

I did not know a Physical Address Extension could allow a 32-bit Operating System to address RAM up to 128 gigabytes in size. Thanks for the information NYHK.
 
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