4GB of RAM and 32bit Vista

speedyink

speedyink

VIP Member
So 32 bit Vista doesn't recognize 4gb of RAM, right? It recognizes it as 3.25gb in the system properties, but is windows still using the full 4gb, or just 3.25gb?
 
Cleric7x9

Cleric7x9

Active Member
32 bit OSs have a max of 4GB minus whatever other components you have that use memory (as all memory needs to be mapped). The official barrier is 4GB, however the real-life barrier depends on what other hardware is in your system. to answer the OP question, no, windows is only using 3.25.
 
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nyhk

New Member
Microsoft has banned the address space above 4G in 32-bit xp and vista due to problems with bad drivers
 
speedyink

speedyink

VIP Member
Ok, so I need 64 bit Vista to have it all be recognized. I still don't understand why the hardware would affect the size. What hardware would be taking the RAM? It's a dedicated video card, so thats ruled out.

So how is 64 bit Vista, is it just as stable as 32 bit?
 
Seth

Seth

New Member
Microsoft are JUST about to launch Service Pack 1 for vista which will allow 32bit versions to recognize the full 4gb of Ram. SO just wait on a few days and save yourself the effort of going to 64 bit.
 
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nyhk

New Member
All they do in SP1 is fool the user. Instead of usable amount, the will display installed amount in various places
 
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nyhk

New Member
Of course it is true. Why else would they say it in various articles?

Before SP2 they supported physical addresses above 4G. They revoked that support due to problems drivers and devices not being able to function properly
 
Geoff

Geoff

VIP Member
nyhk said:
Of course it is true. Why else would they say it in various articles?

Before SP2 they supported physical addresses above 4G. They revoked that support due to problems drivers and devices not being able to function properly
Click to expand...
You could never use more then 4GB of RAM on a 32 bit OS, even before SP2 for XP. It is a limitation of the hardware and software itself, not just Microsoft's choice to disallow over 4GB of RAM from their OS's. They offer both XP Pro and Vista in 64 bit versions, which can support up to 128GB of RAM (except Vista Home)
 
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nyhk

New Member
The x86 architecture offers both PAE and PSE. Microsoft goes with PAE. PAE is normal in both xp and vista because of the DEP support. So going beyond 4G is no problem. How do you think they can support 128GB in their 32-bit datacenter edition? Linux can do the same
 
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nyhk

New Member
If you check the specs on AMD64, they support a 52-bit physical address space in PAE mode, in a 32-bit OS
 
Cleric7x9

Cleric7x9

Active Member
lol, it is in fact NOTHING to do with drivers; its simple math. 32 bit OS running on binary simply means you can have 2^32 possible physical memory addresses. \

2^32=4294967296 (4GB)

check out the 4th sentence: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/32-bit

just google it if you still dont believe me
 
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nyhk

New Member
Cleric7x9 said:
lol, it is in fact NOTHING to do with drivers; its simple math. 32 bit OS running on binary simply means you can have 2^32 possible physical memory addresses. \

2^32=4294967296 (4GB)

check out the 4th sentence: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/32-bit

just google it if you still dont believe me
Click to expand...

I've said which features of x86 that makes it possible. I even linked to a kb that tells you. So why don't you use google yourself?
 
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