XP Home and 4GB RAM

F

fortyways

banned
I've heard different things. Can XP Home use about 3 GB of RAM like XP Pro and other 32-bit operating systems can, or is it artificially limited to 1GB or something?
 
3

3uL

New Member
First, why you want to use alot of ram for xp? If you use 2gb for xp pro, many people say it a plenty of ram. If you want to use 3 or 4 gb, better you use vista...
 
Intel_man

Intel_man

VIP Member
Just a brief idea on how OS system recognizes RAM.


32 bit OS software is mathematically limited to 3.5GB~ of RAM that would be supported.

64 bit OS software would be mathematically limited to 8 TB of RAM.
 
2048Megabytes

2048Megabytes

Active Member
Intel_man said:
Just a brief idea on how OS system recognizes RAM.


32 bit OS software is mathematically limited to 3.5GB~ of RAM that would be supported.

64 bit OS software would be mathematically limited to 8 TB of RAM.
Click to expand...


Mathematically, an operating system limit of memory would be a lot higher than Microsoft makes it. Memory limits are written below:

Windows Vista 64-bit Ultimate 128 gigabytes of RAM
Windows Vista 64-bit Enterprise 128 gigabytes of RAM
Windows Vista 64-bit Business 128 gigabytes of RAM
Windows Vista 64-bit Home Premium 16 gigabytes of RAM
Windows Vista 64-bit Home Basic 8 gigabytes of RAM
Windows Vista 32-bit Home Basic 4 gigabytes of RAM
 
Intel_man

Intel_man

VIP Member
In any 32-bit operating system, the virtual address space is limited, by definition, to the size of a 32-bit value:

23^2 = 4,294,967,296
4,294,967,296 / (1,024 x 1,024) = 4,096

So...

26^4 = 18,446,744,073,709,551,616
18,446,744,073,709,551,616 / (1,024 x 1,024) / 8 = 2 exabytes
 
Gareth

Gareth

Active Member
Have a look on Vista SP1 32-bit on a machine with 4GB RAM. It detects it all. I can go onto my Dads PC for a screenshot later if you want?
 
f.i.t.h

f.i.t.h

New Member
With Vista SP1, windows is able to detect 4 gb of ram, but it physically cannot utilize it all. They included the 'feature' with SP1.
 
diduknowthat

diduknowthat

formerly liuliuboy
XP can detect about 3.25 gigs of memory, depending on different hardware setup. However it's kinda pointless to use 4 gigs of ram in XP anyways.
 
F

fortyways

banned
This computer is for a friend who would like to use XP now but wants to have the capacity to switch to Vista later.

Also, I understand that 32-bit operating systems are limited to 3.something; I've just heard from some people that Microsoft intentionally crippled XP Home to use 1.25 max or something like that. I also heard it's limited to 120GB of hard drive space (is this true?).

Also also, I think I put this in the wrong forum, if a mod would like to move it to operating systems that's fine.
 
S

stevenson140

New Member
Not true at all, LOL I know for a fact because I have a 320GB hard drive and 2GB of RAM in my Computer right now.

Like said before, 32bit OS can recognize 3.50GB(or around there) and I believe it can recognize any size of hard drive long as it's compatible.
 
hermeslyre

hermeslyre

VIP Member
fortyways said:
And you are using XP Home Edition 32 bit?
Click to expand...

I am, It's not true. There were some pre-service pack problems that capped HDD capacity at somewhere around the 120gb mark IIRC, but nothing present.

As the others have said the specific amount of addressable RAM depends solely on your hardware configuration, example given a 768mb VRAM GTX would remove a like amount of the 4gb 32bit limit, two in SLI would effectively disallow even 2gb's of RAM.. (unless only the primary cards RAM is mapped, and the second card is allowed a synchronous existence, I'm not sure about this)
 
F

fortyways

banned
Okay, thanks everyone. I ordered him XP Home 32-bit SP2.

No video games for this computer, his vidya card is an 8600GTS 256MB (for HDCP compliant vidya out), so hopefully he'll have a good portion of his 4GB if I understand what you're saying about hardware correctly.

The rest is:

GA-EP35-DS3L
E8400
2x2GB Corsair XMS DDR2 800
1TB, 32MB cache Seagate 7200.11
 
F

fortyways

banned
mep916 said:
Nice build. Didn't go with the X38, eh?
Click to expand...

Yeah, we decided it wasn't worth the extra $110 considering he won't be overclocking or using a PCIe X16 2.0 card, and since the EP35 supports his DDR2 800 and E8400 out of the box.

I'll be using Gigabyte's X38 for my own build if I ever (hopefully) get around to upgrading my bargain bin box.
 
Intel_man

Intel_man

VIP Member
fortyways said:
This computer is for a friend who would like to use XP now but wants to have the capacity to switch to Vista later.

Also, I understand that 32-bit operating systems are limited to 3.something; I've just heard from some people that Microsoft intentionally crippled XP Home to use 1.25 max or something like that. I also heard it's limited to 120GB of hard drive space (is this true?).

Also also, I think I put this in the wrong forum, if a mod would like to move it to operating systems that's fine.
Click to expand...

Is that why my sister's laptop have a 160GB HDD that uses XP Home? :D
 
T

tyttebøvs

New Member
Intel_man said:
In any 32-bit operating system, the virtual address space is limited, by definition, to the size of a 32-bit value:

23^2 = 4,294,967,296
4,294,967,296 / (1,024 x 1,024) = 4,096
Click to expand...

And that math is wrong. It is in the physical address space you address RAM. And that space can be larger than 4GB in a 32bit OS.
 
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