32bit xp and 4gb ram any benefit ?

[thefishdude]

i knwo yo should have 64bit ram or it aint recognised.

but shortly im gonan build a second media pc for myself and as ram is so cheap was wondering wether it would be worth putting the 2gb of ram from this pc into that and getting maself 2x2gb as a replacement. obviously of thre no benefit will simply just get 2gb for new one

 

[Kelt]

i knwo yo should have 64bit ram or it aint recognised.

but shortly im gonan build a second media pc for myself and as ram is so cheap was wondering wether it would be worth putting the 2gb of ram from this pc into that and getting maself 2x2gb as a replacement. obviously of thre no benefit will simply just get 2gb for new one

Certainly in one of my favourite games there is. Company of heroes will use over 2 gigs of ram. When I went from 2 to 4, the stuttering when scrolling in the map went away, and I was able to up the physics and shadows to max (had them on medium with 2gb). Can't say I've noticed a difference in XP 32 bit though!

Still, it was worth it for me, and also, it means I can upgrade (if that's the right term) to 64 bit Vista if I want to, later on, and get the full benefit of 4Gb.

 

[1337z0r]

Simple answer no there wont be any benefit unless you find your self running out of memory when running applications. The only thing which would benefit you is running Vista 64bit with 4GB of ram.

 

[MoRT489]

Simple answer no there wont be any benefit unless you find your self running out of memory when running applications. The only thing which would benefit you is running Vista 64bit with 4GB of ram.

This post is completely wrong! Even in 32bit version it puts u up to ~3.25GB. Maps in the games I play definitely load faster also alt tabbing back to windows is instant rather than waiting a few seconds for the screen to settle and mouse to come under your control. At the current prices it's almost silly not to get another 2GB

 

[Kelt]

This post is completely wrong! Even in 32bit version it puts u up to ~3.25GB. Maps in the games I play definitely load faster also alt tabbing back to windows is instant rather than waiting a few seconds for the screen to settle and mouse to come under your control. At the current prices it's almost silly not to get another 2GB

Have to agree, although I said in my previous post I hadn't noticed a lot of difference apart from COH (huge improvement), I think that was probably because I wasn't paying much attention to it. There is a definite more of a "snappiness" when alt-tabbing between programs. As Creed mentions, DDR2 prices are so cheap, why wouldn't you upgrade!

 

[setter]

Wondering about this as well. i have 4x1gb of team extreem pc6400. 2gb is currently in the system while the other 2 is not in use. would there be much benefit from sticking it in as well.

 

[Corasik]

Windows 32bit limits each application to 2Gb memory space, and by default the physical memory is divided into 2gb userspace, and 2gb kernel (Although the /3gb boot hack switches to 3Gb userspace, and 1gb kernel).

Anyway, a limitation of 32bit windows is any 1 application cannot access more than 2gb of physical ram, above 2gb pages will be put into the swapfile instead.

64 bit windows actually has the same 2gb limitation, however with both 32bit and 64bit software there is a complier option which enables large memory support. For 32bit applications on 64bit windows that option extends access to physical memory to the full 4gb, for 64bit windows the limit is set by the version of windows. Vista64 ultimate has a whopping 128gb limit, and even that is a "software" limitation.

4GB on 32bit windows is pretty limited use really, although not completely useless the 2GB limit I mentioned is per application, so say you have 3GB memory after the graphics cards ram, and other bits and bobs are mapped in, windows itself + antivirus/firewall etc will take their normal few hundred meg of ram, and your game will get a full 2gb all to itself. Clearly better than 2Gb shared between game, os, and various other processes.

Interestingly, 32bit applications compiled with the large memory option, will run just fine on 32bit windows, but with the standard 32bit limitations, so there is disadvantage to the software developers to enable the additional memory support on 64 bit systems, while remaining compatible with Windows 32bit . (Compiler flag for Visual C++ = /largeaddressaware). Im not sure if its possible to see which flags were set during build though.

 

[Deks]

Nice post thanks. I am running XP 32-bit and still can't decide if to upgrade to 4gb. I guess If I gain a little bit with progs using the full 2gb I'll bite the bullet.

Deks