4GB on Vista 32bit?? is a good idea?

SixDemons · 17 Sep 2007 at 16:23

Do you guys think is a good idea? , since I dont want to Upgrade to 64bits OS because its sucks, almost none of the utilitys I use work or work fine, and the drivers are crapy nvidia ones and Creative ones and yep, more crapy than the 32bit ones

I would feel difference between 2gb and 4gb (3.0 or 3.5) on vista 32bits?

my rig is in the signature.... thanks...

Cob · 17 Sep 2007 at 17:10

Not really, unless you are experiencing stutter and the hard drive is thrashing during gaming.

caithomas44 · 17 Sep 2007 at 18:53

no because 32bit will not run 4gb. you will only be able to use 3gb of it

sorry!

SixDemons · 17 Sep 2007 at 19:48

caithomas44 said:
no because 32bit will not run 4gb. you will only be able to use 3gb of it sorry!

I know this, but with this 3.12gb I will feel any diference between the 2gb I have now?

Yellowbeard · 17 Sep 2007 at 20:16

SixDemons said:
I know this, but with this 3.12gb I will feel any diference between the 2gb I have now?

See answer #2 above. I have a gaming system on 32 bit XP with 4gb of memory in it. I have not tested it but it "feels" better with 4gb than with 2gb even though I can only utilize 3.25gb or so.

no because 32bit will not run 4gb. you will only be able to use 3gb of it sorry!

FWIW, Vista 32 bit (or XP or any other 32 bit OS) can utilize a total of 4gb of memory.

Participant · 17 Sep 2007 at 20:25

SixDemons said:
Do you guys think is a good idea? , since I dont want to Upgrade to 64bits OS because its sucks, almost none of the utilitys I use work or work fine, and the drivers are crapy nvidia ones and Creative ones and yep, more crapy than the 32bit ones
I would feel difference between 2gb and 4gb (3.0 or 3.5) on vista 32bits?

my rig is in the signature.... thanks...

Vista x64
Creative sound card
NVidia GPU

All works fine with the drivers available :confused:

Get x64 and worry no longer about the OS tabling all the RAM! 4Gb is a good upgrade as the RAM is so cheap and it makes things feel more "snappy". Alt-tab from games = instant.

Yellowbeard · 17 Sep 2007 at 20:28

Robbie G said:
Vista x64
Creative sound card
NVidia GPU

All works fine with the drivers available

Get x64 and worry no longer about the OS tabling all the RAM! 4Gb is a good upgrade as the RAM is so cheap and it makes things feel more "snappy". Alt-tab from games = instant.[/QUOTE]Very true, I forgot about that. To use BF2 as an example, I became a server admin for a while. Tabbing out with 2gb for admin client was terrible. But, with the extra memory, it was much faster both out and then back into BF2.

Jedipottsy · 18 Sep 2007 at 21:13

Yellowbeard said:
See answer #2 above. I have a gaming system on 32 bit XP with 4gb of memory in it. I have not tested it but it "feels" better with 4gb than with 2gb even though I can only utilize 3.25gb or so.

FWIW, Vista 32 bit (or XP or any other 32 bit OS) can utilize a total of 4gb of memory.

Nop, it can only address 4gb total in theory, however there is overlay between virtual memory and HDD cache and PCI devices etc, so in practice there is only about 3.25gb visible. However even so, a single application can only be allocated 4GB of total memory. This includes Kernel and userspace. Using the bootswitch to give the application a 3GB barrier instead of 2gb helps, however at a loss. Firstly the application must be 3GB Switch aware, however most applications are not (the few applications which do support it do tend to be large programs which use ram neway).
The downside is that the kernel space is being reduced to 1GB. This *should* help is vista as drivers are in user space not kernel space, however this doesnt help much in practice.

Finally Vista is in 32bit and 64bit, and while the 32Bit version may be the best ATM, if you have 4gb or more go for 64bit. Applications should run smoother and you'll be able to address all the ram you could possibly buy and fit into a motherboard in the next 10 years atleast (knowing me there will be a big JUMP in ram size and we'll need 128bit...In 1997 32mb was huge....)

Yellowbeard · 18 Sep 2007 at 21:45

Nop, it can only address 4gb total in theory, however there is overlay between virtual memory and HDD cache and PCI devices etc, so in practice there is only about 3.25gb visible.

There is no hard and fast rule on the amount visible. For example, let's say you have a video card with 92mb of memory and your CPU has 4mb of cache and that is all the component memory in the entire system. With 4gb of installed system memory (4096mb) you'd "see" 4000mb of memory available to the OS.

Kalpsn2000 · 18 Sep 2007 at 22:05

Yellowbeard said:
There is no hard and fast rule on the amount visible. For example, let's say you have a video card with 92mb of memory and your CPU has 4mb of cache and that is all the component memory in the entire system. With 4gb of installed system memory (4096mb) you'd "see" 4000mb of memory available to the OS.

But who is going to have 4GB of RAM and a graphics card with less then 128mb, well 256mb of memory?

Especially someone on these forums!

Cob · 18 Sep 2007 at 22:06

Non-gamers.

Like myself.

Kalpsn2000 · 18 Sep 2007 at 22:09

Cob said:
Non-gamers.

Like myself.

Ok.

Do you have a 32bit OS?

Cob · 18 Sep 2007 at 22:13

Certainly not.

But I did once, a long long time ago

*reminisces

Kalpsn2000 · 18 Sep 2007 at 22:19

Cob said:
Certainly not.

But I did once, a long long time ago

*reminisces

Exactly. This thread is about whether 4GB is worth it in Vista 32bit. (back to OP question)

From what I have read, not really unless you are a non gamer or have a **** graphics card.

Cob · 18 Sep 2007 at 22:28

Kalpsn2000 said:
Exactly. This thread is about whether 4GB is worth it in Vista 32bit. (back to OP question)

From what I have read, not really unless you are a non gamer or have a **** graphics card.

Kalpsn2000 said:
But who is going to have 4GB of RAM and a graphics card with less then 128mb, well 256mb of memory?

Especially someone on these forums!

I answered your question.

And my card is more than enough for what I use my system for. My CPU and memory is what matters.

Anyway, back on topic.

Jedipottsy · 18 Sep 2007 at 22:52

Yellowbeard said:
There is no hard and fast rule on the amount visible. For example, let's say you have a video card with 92mb of memory and your CPU has 4mb of cache and that is all the component memory in the entire system. With 4gb of installed system memory (4096mb) you'd "see" 4000mb of memory available to the OS.

Thats why i said "about". Typical users can only see "about" 3.25gb, some more some less.

Yellowbeard · 19 Sep 2007 at 02:11

Well, a VERY small percentage of the computer using world actually involves 512mb, 768mb, and 1024mb video cards and even fewer have SLI or Crossfire. Industry estimates put enthusiast users at less than 3% of computer users world wide. Some even estimate less than 1%. Gamers may skew the video card numbers but, not all gamers are computer enthusiasts. It is simply a tool to them.

However, the number of people that will need and get good use from 4gb is growing rapidly. So, out of that number (those that don't need killer graphics) there should be a significant number seeing and using more than 3.25gb. And, 64 bit OS' are being adopted VERY slowly. But, as noted, most of them don't hang out in puter forums.

SixDemons · 19 Sep 2007 at 20:29

well thanks for those answers... I will try the 64bits one...

Aod · 21 Sep 2007 at 17:09

i'm getting 4GB with my new PC soon, but i don't want to make the leap to Vista, because its still a bit crummy. is XP x64 better than it used to be?

stickroad · 21 Sep 2007 at 17:10

Aod said:
i'm getting 4GB with my new PC soon, but i don't want to make the leap to Vista, because its still a bit crummy. is XP x64 better than it used to be?

If your thiking about going for XP 64 you might as well get Vista. The support with Vista is so much better now than it was a when it first came out.