I have Vista 32bit can I upgrade to 4gb ram?

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Ladic

[H]ard|Gawd
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I currently have 2gb of ram, can I upgrade to 4gb? or vista 32bit wont use more than 2gb?
 
Correct, 32bit OS's limit you, (more or less,) to 2GB. It won't hurt anything but you won't see all 4GB of it, (mine is showing around 2.7 give or take.)
 
If you want to be able to use all 4 GB, you'll want to use a 64-bit operating system. Because of techniques like memory-mapped I/O, part of the 32-bit addressing space is used for things like other devices and video cards, which can take a large chunk of your addressable memory because of the cards with large amounts of video RAM (like FallenMystic's 640 MB card).

I have a machine with 4 GB RAM, 3.5 GB of it addressable in windows (has a 128 MB card, minimal other stuff).

Also read mikeblas's excellent post about this matter: http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1035670
 
Well, that depends. 64-bit Vista allows more memory to be addressed, so you could conceivably build a faster rig with more memory. There've also been stories about the 32-bit Vista having memory allocation issues even at the 2GB mark, which may hinder performance in some scenarios.

That being said, apples to apples, with say 2 GB of RAM and things behaving normally, unless the game was compiled for the 64-bit environment (as happened with Far Cry), there'll be a negligble performance hit in 64-bit Vista.
 
32bit OS's are limited to a 4GB pagefile. Pagefile = RAM + L1 cache + L2 cache + L3 cache (if you have it) + Video RAM + virtual RAM (hard drive page file) + etc... any and all memory that can possibly be addressed.

Some OS's extend this by using what boils down to a kind of swapfile, but in this case it is not being directly accessed. In short, load it with 4GB of RAM (it's cheap) and get rid of your swapfile, as it is entirely unnecessary.
 
The 2GB game addressing limit is unrelated to this, I posted the hotfixes for it (both x86 & x64) in this thread:
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1216485

In that case, the OS tells each application/game that it has 4GB of space, which does consist of virtual memory as well as physical. 2GB of it is for the game/application, the other 2GB is for the OS. It is possible to edit the related .exe files and integrate an OS switch, but I wouldn't suggest it. The hotfix above isn't freely available yet, but it should take care of that problem without other changes.

A 32-bit OS is limited to 4GB of memory addressing. Vista 32-bit limits you to a maximum of 3.25GB in usage, but you may get less than that depending on your configuration; the OS reserves some of the memory addresses for your motherboard and video card. Virtual memory and pagefile have nothing to do with this, and neither does any other type of memory (cache or otherwise) - it is purely a physical memory addressing limitation. PAE mode does exist for 32-bit OS but it diminishes memory performance significantly, causes driver issues, and generally does not work well with Vista 32-bit as you still require memory remapping (which you would use for x64).
 
ok, I bought another 2GB cause it was cheap.

Now on my 32bit Vista I have 4GB, when I go under MY PC and Properties, it says I have 3.5GB, does this mean its using 3.5GB? or is it still using only 2GB? So Far I notice Turning my computer ON and OFF (Specially OFF) is ALOT faster than before.
 
Ladic said:
ok, I bought another 2GB cause it was cheap.

Now on my 32bit Vista I have 4GB, when I go under MY PC and Properties, it says I have 3.5GB, does this mean its using 3.5GB? or is it still using only 2GB? So Far I notice Turning my computer ON and OFF (Specially OFF) is ALOT faster than before.
Click to expand...

It should only "see" a maximum of ~3.25GB, but whatever it sees it can use just fine.
 
But don't forget, Vista 64bit Ultimate is having a very hard time installing with over 2 gigs in. If it tosses a BSOD on installation, pop out 2 gigs and install (So have a total of 2 gigs installed at installation time). Just went through this and it's a pita. I smell a need for a sp1 for Vista64.

-HippieCat
 
You can but Millenium Edition 2 won't take advangate of it and you'd be wasting your money. Get the 64-Bit edition and save yourself a small amount of grief.
 
HippieCat said:
But don't forget, Vista 64bit Ultimate is having a very hard time installing with over 2 gigs in. If it tosses a BSOD on installation, pop out 2 gigs and install (So have a total of 2 gigs installed at installation time). Just went through this and it's a pita. I smell a need for a sp1 for Vista64.

-HippieCat
Click to expand...

Most people don't have problems with this, but if you do, that is the method to persue...I posted the hotfix needed in this thread:
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1216458
 
HippieCat said:
But don't forget, Vista 64bit Ultimate is having a very hard time installing with over 2 gigs in. If it tosses a BSOD on installation, pop out 2 gigs and install (So have a total of 2 gigs installed at installation time). Just went through this and it's a pita. I smell a need for a sp1 for Vista64.

-HippieCat
Click to expand...

I have no such problem
 
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