4gigs of ram...are there any 32bit window os the will recognize?

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Camaroz06

Gawd
Joined
Jan 26, 2007
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642
Hello All,
There are not any 32bit Window OSs that will recognze 4gigs of RAM right? If I wanted 4gigs I would have to go 64bit? And then most programs wouldnt work?

Thanks,
Eddie
 
No 32-bit OS can allocate 4GB to RAM. The most you would be able to get is 3.3GB like me. You need a 64-bit OS to get 4GB or more RAM.
 
Yes, you'll have to go 64-bit. I'm only running XP 64-bit right now, but even that I have very few compatibility issues with. I would imagine (from what I've heard), that 64-bit Vista is even better in terms of compatibility, and is pretty much the same as 32-bit Vista.
 
You will not be able to see all 4 GB no matter what, in any 32-bit Windows, because some part of the address space will always be taken to address the other devices in the system.

To fully utilize all 4 GB, you will need 64-bit Windows. Most applications should work correctly in a 64-bit windows (Vista or XP), but you should do research because I have no idea what you run.
 
It amazes me how much misinformation is out there, that people still don't have the facts. As mentioned, you definitely need a 64 bit OS. As for compatibility, that's pretty much non-existent with either XP x64 or Vista x64. I don't know where you were told that your programs wouldn't work, but I wouldn't trust that source anymore. With Vista compatible apps, many of them either work on both platforms, or offer one for each.
 
Microsoft only supports more than 4G in their server systems. One reason they give for this is bad drivers. There was a thread about this some days ago
 
pallesen said:
Microsoft only supports more than 4G in their server systems. One reason they give for this is bad drivers. There was a thread about this some days ago
Click to expand...
Once again, wrong.

4GB is a hard limit in 32-bit systems. There's a fairly simple reason: 2^32 is 4 Gigabytes. That's the maximum address space any 32-bit processor can handle, period. x64 processors (AMD64, Opteron, Intel with 64-bit extensions) have full x86 compatibility, and Windows x64 will run 32-bit apps just fine. It'll need 64-bit drivers, but those are getting a lot more common. All of your programs will run fine. This much is fact.

Now, as to why 32-bit Windows won't show you the full 4GB, my understanding is that Windows maps Video RAM in the same address space as Physical RAM, meaning that your shown memory will be 4GB - Video Card RAM. I may be misinformed on this, however.
 
Arainach said:
Now, as to why 32-bit Windows won't show you the full 4GB, my understanding is that Windows maps Video RAM in the same address space as Physical RAM, meaning that your shown memory will be 4GB - Video Card RAM. I may be misinformed on this, however.
Click to expand...

I wish that thread were still sticked that discussed the 4 GB address space in Windows (and I wish there was a sticky with size 20 bold cap font saying "Read here for 4 GB information and 32-bit OSes on x86 CPUs!"

Anyway, it's called memory mapped I/O, where the same address space is used to address RAM as well as devices like your network controller, video card, etc. You can get really close to having 4 GB of usable memory, depending on how little hardware you run. The 32-bit address space for x86 is not just for RAM, it's for RAM + other hardware. In a 64-bit address space, the upper limit of the 64-bit space will be reserved for devices, but I don't think we will have to be too worried about "OMG, I can only see 15.998 exabytes of my RAM, WTF"
 
Arainach said:
Once again, wrong.

4GB is a hard limit in 32-bit systems. There's a fairly simple reason: 2^32 is 4 Gigabytes. That's the maximum address space any 32-bit processor can handle, period. x64 processors (AMD64, Opteron, Intel with 64-bit extensions) have full x86 compatibility, and Windows x64 will run 32-bit apps just fine. It'll need 64-bit drivers, but those are getting a lot more common. All of your programs will run fine. This much is fact.
Click to expand...

No, that is wrong. 32-bit CPUs have been able to do 36-bit addressing for years. Google PAE, or look up the thread from a couple of days ago.
 
BillLeeLee said:
but I don't think we will have to be too worried about "OMG, I can only see 15.998 exabytes of my RAM, WTF"
Click to expand...

Well, if you have a chipset that is limitied to 8GB, and you install 8GB RAM, then you might say: OMG, I only see 7.25 GB, WTF
 
pallesen said:
No, that is wrong. 32-bit CPUs have been able to do 36-bit addressing for years. Google PAE, or look up the thread from a couple of days ago.
Click to expand...

Of course, PAE is pretty much useless to anyone not running a server. (Yes this is a generalization. No I will not 'correct' it.) If you're doing any gaming and want to address 4GB+ of RAM, Vista 64bit is without question the way to go.
 
silent-circuit said:
Of course, PAE is pretty much useless to anyone not running a server.
Click to expand...

Why is it useless? I'm fully aware that installing 16GB RAM wont give normal apps access to 16GB RAM (you stil have 4GB of virtual address space). But in this case, PAE will/would give you access to full 4GB to share among windows kernel and apps, instead of 3.x

Edit: as a note, running a 32-bit app on 64-bit Windows still limits the app to 4GB of virtual address space. So you won't gain anything here.
 
If a process wants more than 4 GB of virtual address space, and you've got 4 GB of RAM, there's a bigger problem at work here. :p
 
a 32-bit app wouldn't know how to address >4gb ayways...

for must users considering 4gb and 64-bit, the simple answer is Windows 32-bit only knows how to address 4gb. Since video memory is part of the ram addressing windows has to deal with, it is taken into account when totaling your memory. Drop in a smaller/larger video card and you will see how it changes.

The long of it is kinda irrelevant from a gaming standpoint. You want to game, it's pretty simple that you want either xp64, or vista 64, depending on how well each game works on each OS. I'd take vista 64 as there's been a big push for compatibility.
 
pallesen said:
Why is it useless? I'm fully aware that installing 16GB RAM wont give normal apps access to 16GB RAM (you stil have 4GB of virtual address space). But in this case, PAE will/would give you access to full 4GB to share among windows kernel and apps, instead of 3.x

Edit: as a note, running a 32-bit app on 64-bit Windows still limits the app to 4GB of virtual address space. So you won't gain anything here.
Click to expand...
Because the additional hit of having to map memory every time it's accessed will be worse than not having 4GB in the first place for anything but a server that absolutely needs that RAM.
 
BX_TECH_GOD said:
No 32-bit OS can allocate 4GB to RAM. The most you would be able to get is 3.3GB like me. You need a 64-bit OS to get 4GB or more RAM.
Click to expand...

Sorry but you are wrong there. There are plenty of 32bit OS's that can allocate 4Gig to RAM, they can go upto the 64Gig limit

Had you said windows that would be different ;)
 
[
Arainach said:
Because the additional hit of having to map memory every time it's accessed will be worse than not having 4GB in the first place for anything but a server that absolutely needs that RAM.
Click to expand...

That is the usual wrong understanding of how it works. In PAE mode, the page translation is the same whether or not you have addresses below or above 4G. And the translation is 100% transparent to applications, so they don't know where in physical memory they resides. It can be below or it can be above, it doesn't matter.

Page translation in 64-bit more is even more complex than in PAE mode
 
Maybe, but I cannot really begin to explain in more detail here, that would be too time consuming. There is a greal deal of litterature about the subject around the internet. Use google
 
At least for 32 bit windows, 4 GB of ram will never be fully used due to its' memory addressing. You would have to change to 64 bit.
 
anime4u said:
At least for 32 bit windows, 4 GB of ram will never be fully used due to its' memory addressing. You would have to change to 64 bit.
Click to expand...

32bit non windows server OS's ;). But for regular users, you're correct.
 
pallesen said:
It doesn't has to. Applications don't t address physical memory, so there is no downside at this point.
Click to expand...

Indeed, they don't. Drivers, on the other hand, do have issues. I don't know if nVidia ever addressed their issues, but their 32-bit drivers used to crash in server/PAE enabled 4GB systems.
 
masteraleph said:
Indeed, they don't. Drivers, on the other hand, do have issues. I don't know if nVidia ever addressed their issues, but their 32-bit drivers used to crash in server/PAE enabled 4GB systems.
Click to expand...

Which is one of the reasons Microsoft gives to why they wont cross the 4G-boundary in xp and vista, even when you have the PAE kernel loaded
 
Hello All,
There are not any 32bit Window OSs that will recognze 4gigs of RAM right? No, not realistically, unless you have 0mb of gpu ram, so no. If I wanted 4gigs I would have to go 64bit? Yes. And then most programs wouldnt work? Yes, I am running viista 64-bit and all of my programs work great and it is stable.

Thanks,
Eddie


Thread /closed.
 
coolxboxgamer said:
Hello All,
There are not any 32bit Window OSs that will recognze 4gigs of RAM right? No, not realistically, unless you have 0mb of gpu ram, so no. If I wanted 4gigs I would have to go 64bit? Yes. And then most programs wouldnt work? Yes, I am running viista 64-bit and all of my programs work great and it is stable.

Thanks,
Eddie


Thread /closed.
Click to expand...

L2Quote
 
Version Limit in 32-bit Windows Limit in 64-bit Windows
Windows Server 2008 Datacenter (full installation) 64 GB 2 TB
Windows Server 2008 Datacenter (Server Core installation) 64 GB 2 TB
Windows Server 2008 Enterprise 64 GB 2 TB
Click to expand...

learn something new everyday
 
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