OS/Videocard question

R

Raze1

Weaksauce
Joined
Oct 13, 2002
Messages
100
Biostar 790gx
AMD 9850 BE
2 gig 1066 ddr
XP sp3
Antec 380 PSU (but buying a corsair 750tx this week)

I read that xp 32bit has a 2 gig memory limitation. If I get a 1 GB 4890 or whatever, will I need to upgrade to 64bit XP or vista or vista64bit?

Would it be more economical to upgrade to 7RC1 beta, assuming it comes with dx10 as well?

I want to buy saphy 4980 vapor-x although a 4850x2 for <250 is really tempting...I currently don't have any video games but plan to buy some for summer. I wish to play at 19x12 on my 24"samsung
 
Last edited:
Thats not right. its a 4gb limit of total space. So for example. if you have 4GB in your comp and then a 512MB graphics card, you will only have 3.5GB RAM barring any other memory resources in your comp.
 
wrong
4GB address space limit this INCLUDES memory mapped hardware not just the video card
leading to a DIRECTLY addressble amount of ~3.5GB give or take
but most CPUs have PAE which acts like a page file with in ram and lets it use all 4GB even with only 3.5 useble
also all 32bit aps withs few excptions can only use 2GB of ram any way

lt;dr
most things wont care your still using all the ram even its its not all adressable
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Extension
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEdrv.mspx
 
jvz555 said:
its actually more like 3.25GB since i run xp 32-bit(to flash 360's) and vista 64bit with 6gb of ram when i go into properties it shows 3.25gb on xp
Click to expand...

its 4GB of physical ram even MS own site says so
the "lost" ram is becouse most hardware maps its self to an address in ram

this leads to less ADDRESSABLE ram
ffs l2x86

edit
the amount lost will vary from PC to PC do to what hardware is installed and how much address space it wants
the total use-able address space can vary from 4GB to 3GB(normally it could be as low as 2.5GB)
 
Several of you are confusing how Windows uses physical memory and virtual memory. Don't feel bad - probably 99.9 percent of PC users don't understand this at all, and I do not count myself among the experts.

For definitive but technical explanations on how Windows XP uses physical memory and virtual memory, see Mark Russinovich's essays:

Pushing The Limits Of Windows: Physical Memory
Pushing The Limits Of Windows: Virtual Memory
Pushing The Limits Of Windows: Paged and Nonpaged Pool

Among other things, the first one, Physical Memory, shows you exactly how to find out how much memory your video cards are using - the answer varies wildly depending on your video card and your motherboard.

The second link explains, among other things, how to determine how big your paging file needs to be, and dispels the myth that it should be 1.5 or 2.5 times the amount of your RAM (those formulas are totally useless).

The third link explains... stuff that I don't even understand what it's about, but it's probably beyond the scope of typical users.
 
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