utilizing 4gb memory on 32bit OS

WhiteFireDragon

WhiteFireDragon

New Member
it is my understanding on a 32bit system with 4gb memory installed that only 3.25gb will show up but it actually utilizes the full 4gb if needed... right?
 
look if you want to use 4G on XP 32bit get the i cant rember what it is called as i was pissed when i got told but it is a 4Gpatch or somthing like that it rewrites the whole regstry an you can use more than 3.25G ram i think u can get up to 8G
 
apparntly not he has done it an it works fine.
it was about 100Meg it bacicly rewite the regestry.
an i trust this guy with anything with computers he knows the founders of overclockers forums an has lots of conections. and i have seen him do it an it worked
 
There is nothing wrong with using more than 32 bits to express the physical address space in a 32-bit OS. The memory manager in XP/SP2 and vista just doens't allow it, because Microsoft needs to make sure drivers will work, and some break when you go above 4G
 
Is there even a performance difference between 3.3GB and 4GB? Everyone says there is not much difference between 2 and 4.
 
There can be a difference from 2 to 4 in terms of multi tasking and some gaming. If you have firefox with 40 tabs, crysis, and you're encoding a 3 hour video, 4 gigs will beat 2. >.>

@whitefiredragon, the extra gig can go to other components like the graphics card. People had problems with the alienware m9750 laptop, because with a gig of graphics, it only saw 2.5 gigs of ram.
 
Sir Travis D said:
@whitefiredragon, the extra gig can go to other components like the graphics card. People had problems with the alienware m9750 laptop, because with a gig of graphics, it only saw 2.5 gigs of ram.
Click to expand...

so then i was somewhat correct on my first post about how windows will only see 3gb but actually utilizing the full 4gb if needed...
 
Physical Address Extension. PAE is an Intel-provided memory address extension that enables support of up to 64 GB of physical memory for applications running on most 32-bit (IA-32) Intel Pentium Pro and later platforms. Support for PAE is provided under Windows 2000 and 32-bit versions of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. 64-bit versions of Windows do not support PAE.

PAE allows the most recent IA-32 processors to expand the number of bits that can be used to address physical memory from 32 bits to 36 bits through support in the host operating system for applications using the Address Windowing Extensions (AWE) application programming interface (API).
 
WhiteFireDragon said:
so then i was somewhat correct on my first post about how windows will only see 3gb but actually utilizing the full 4gb if needed...
Click to expand...

Windows will use the entire 4GB address space. But not all of this address space points to your RAM. The portion of the RAM that is not included in this 4GB address space is unused
 
cRABu said:
Physical Address Extension. PAE is an Intel-provided memory address extension that enables support of up to 64 GB of physical memory for applications running on most 32-bit (IA-32) Intel Pentium Pro and later platforms. Support for PAE is provided under Windows 2000 and 32-bit versions of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. 64-bit versions of Windows do not support PAE.

PAE allows the most recent IA-32 processors to expand the number of bits that can be used to address physical memory from 32 bits to 36 bits through support in the host operating system for applications using the Address Windowing Extensions (AWE) application programming interface (API).
Click to expand...
so is this PAE a program or software i can download or buy somewhere?
tyttebøvs said:
Windows will use the entire 4GB address space. But not all of this address space points to your RAM. The portion of the RAM that is not included in this 4GB address space is unused
Click to expand...

im still a little bit confused. i still dont get 'address space' and how it needs to be appointed. with 4 sticks of 1gb each, will the 3.25gb that the computer sees get evenly distributed between all 4 sticks? or is pretty much one stick just dead weight and how do i know which one?
 
The PAE kernel is not enabled by default for systems that can support more than 4 GB of RAM.

To boot the system and utilize PAE memory, the /PAE switch must be added to the corresponding entry in the Boot.ini file. If a problem should arise, Safe Mode may be used, which causes the system to boot using the normal kernel (support for only 4 GB of RAM) even if the /PAE switch is part of the Boot.ini file.

The PAE mode kernel requires an Intel Architecture processor, Pentium Pro or later, more than 4 GB of RAM, and Windows 2000, Windows XP, or Windows Server 2003.

The PAE kernel can be enabled automatically without the /PAE switch present in the boot entry if the system has DEP enabled (/NOEXECUTE switch is present) or the system processor supports hardware-enforced DEP. Presence of the /NOEXECUTE switch on a system with a processor that supports hardware-enforced DEP implies the /PAE switch. If the system processor is capable of hardware-enforced DEP and the /NOEXECUTE switch is not present in the boot entry, Windows assumes /NOEXECUTE=optin by default and enables PAE mode.
 
Operating system Maximum memory support with PAE :

Windows 2000 Advanced Server
8 GB of physical RAM

Windows 2000 Datacenter Server
32 GB of physical RAM

Windows XP (all versions)
4 GB of physical RAM*

Windows Server 2003 (and SP1), Standard Edition
4 GB of physical RAM*

Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition
32 GB of physical RAM

Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition
64 GB of physical RAM

Windows Server 2003 SP1, Enterprise Edition
64 GB of physical RAM

Windows Server 2003 SP1, Datacenter Edition
128 GB of physical RAM

* PAE is supported only on 32-bit versions of the Windows operating system. 64-bit versions of Windows do not support PAE.
 
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