4gb in Xp 32-bit

Jono8 · 4 Mar 2008 at 16:22

Hi guys

Im using Cubase with lots of large orchestral samples and 2gb is just slightly not cutting it anymore. But i do have another 2 1gb sticks kicking about.

Now i understand that 4gb is the TOTAL address space in xp 32-bit and in device manger it only recognises 3.5gb. This is fine, and 3.5gb should be ample for now but i was just wondering, will running 4 sticks of 1gb be detremental to the computer in any way? Or will it run perfectly fine thinking it has only 3.5gb?

Cheers

JT

romperstomper · 4 Mar 2008 at 16:25

Jono8 said:
it run perfectly fine thinking it has only 3.5gb?

Shrapnel · 4 Mar 2008 at 16:40

yep. Depending on your hardware you might have to increase the Northbridge and VCore a bit when going to 4 sticks.

nikebee · 4 Mar 2008 at 16:42

It'll be fine.

I've got 4GB in my XP machine, works a treat.

Shows up as 3.5GB as you mentioned, certainly not harmful or performance damaging in anyway what so ever

Grumpy · 4 Mar 2008 at 19:12

I've read a few comments about this on here and it seems that you 'lose' as much RAM as there is memory on your GFX card.

I was just wondering, why? If the GFX card has 512mb memory on it for gfx use, why does it need to rob another 512 off the ram, and similarly 1gb gfx robs 1gb RAM?

Werewolf · 4 Mar 2008 at 19:33

It's not so much the graphics card* taking the memory, as windows having a limit on how much memory (including all devices) it can use.
It's basically a case of Windows 32bit not being able to see over 4gb, so it gives priority to the graphics/devices over the extra RAM (whilst you can easily get away with 3.5gb of RAM, you can't really get away without windows being able to address the videocard memory and things like the hard driver controllers).

*Unless you happen to be using an onboard graphics card that uses "shared" memory.

Grumpy · 4 Mar 2008 at 19:46

Doh, it's obvious when you actually see it written down.

Thanks.

superplay · 4 Mar 2008 at 20:29

One to watch for!

With Vista SP1 the OS will show 4GB. However this is an interface fudge, the OS will only utilise the same amout of RAM as pre SP1.

If your right click COMPUTER/Properties on a SP1 machine it will show you 4GB, however task manager will still show you the correct figure.

Skeeter · 4 Mar 2008 at 20:34

I lost 200 3dMark06 points when I went from 2 to 4 GB RAM (12300 to 12100)....

But this does not translate to any real kind of deteriation in performance. Windows doesnt really care how your memory is aranged. As far as its concerned it sends signals to a block of memory at a certain address... If it cant address it it just doent use it...

Jono8 · 5 Mar 2008 at 10:43

Ok cheers guys. The only wierd thing is that cubase constantly things i dont have enough virtual memory free even if i've got tons left? wierd.