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Does the GPU Ram count towards the OS limit?

Reality|Bites said:
A 32bit OS can only address a MAX of 4GB od memory, This includes System, Graphics card and HDD & DVD drive memory.

A 64bit system can address 128GB of memory.
Click to expand...

Don't forget cache too. :)

Though I'm not sure what you mean by HDD and DVD drive memory?

Also, a 64bit OS can address much much more RAM than 128GB. A 64bit OS can address up to 16 Exabytes, or, 16 billion GB :p. Well in theory the maximum is 16 Exabytes anyways. :D
 
Actually in certain situations a 32-bit OS can address 64gb of memory. It's just Windows can't. (I think Linux can with certain kernel switches turned on, but not sure about that)
 
Reality|Bites said:
A 32bit OS can only address a MAX of 4GB od memory, This includes System, Graphics card and HDD & DVD drive memory.
Click to expand...

You know what, I can honestly hold my hand up and say after all the years of playing with computers (about 23 years messing with them), a degree and a half (lol) in computing, being an I.T. Professional now, I have never actually heard/ considered/ realised that before :o

I understood it mapped all the memory space out, but just never viewed it like that lol. :rolleyes:

Matthew
 
Scougar said:
You know what, I can honestly hold my hand up and say after all the years of playing with computers (about 23 years messing with them), a degree and a half (lol) in computing, being an I.T. Professional now, I have never actually heard/ considered/ realised that before :o

I understood it mapped all the memory space out, but just never viewed it like that lol. :rolleyes:

Matthew
Click to expand...

With the smilies I don't know how to take that?

Are you being genuine or are you being a ****?
 
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Jabout said:
Does the GPU Ram count towards the OS limit?
Click to expand...

Hello Jabout, I believe the limit you are referring to is when you are using 32-bit based systems which is down to the architecture and not the operating system you are using, to a certain extent anyway.

Their is no "actual" amount a 32-bit operating system will be able to address. It is normally in the region of 3GB. However, this does not mean that every system that has a 32-bit operating system installed along with 4GB of memory, will in definite, see 3GB of memory, it is very much dependent on the type of hardware that said system consists off.

Windows XP and Windows Vista 32-bit support an addressing range of 4GB and within this, the memory addresses are sub-divided to manage both the PCI memory address range also known as Memory Mapped I/O Device (MMIO) as well as the physical memory that you have installed in your system. This is the reason why windows always reports less than 4GB even though you have 4GB of physical RAM installed in your system.

The PCI memory addresses, which are assigned from a top to bottom manner, are used for things like the BIOS, network cards, PCI-Express and graphics cards. The BIOS is first to take up around 512KB (Just as an example) starting from the very top address. Then the other devices as mentioned above are allocated an address range below that of the BIOS range. The largest chunk of addresses is used up by the graphics card which needs addresses for at least the amount of memory that is on the graphics card.

The result of this is that the system may allocate 512MB to as much as 1 GB maybe even more depending on your hardware configuration purely for the PCI memory addresses before any memory (Physical Memory) addresses have even been allocated.

Now, where as the PCI memory addresses which are assigned from a top to bottom manner, RAM is assigned the other way round from a bottom to top manner. In this case, RAM is allocated all the way up to the PCI memory addresses as mentioned above, typically limiting the available RAM to 3 GB and 3.5 GB.

It is all dependent on your hardware configuration and that's why it varies from one machine to the next. :)
 
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Thanks for the excellent answers.

I asked because I have XP pro 32 bit, but I'm thinking of getting a 2gb 4830 X2, which along with the 2gb ram I have in the mother board means I probably should move on to a 64 bit system.

Thanks again.
 
I'm still a little confused, but if I was to order from the Overclockers pc builder web page, as you can, a pc with a 32 bit OS 4GB Ram and 2 GPU's each with 1GB memory, it would still work wouldn't it?
 
Jabout said:
I'm still a little confused, but if I was to order from the Overclockers pc builder web page, as you can, a pc with a 32 bit OS 4GB Ram and 2 GPU's each with 1GB memory, it would still work wouldn't it?
Click to expand...

It would work but but you'd only get to use 2GB of that 4GB (well a bit less actually).
 
Reality|Bites said:
With the smilies I don't know how to take that?

Are you being genuine or are you being a ****?
Click to expand...

I'm pretty much in the same situation and write software for a living. 20+ years of experience right back to the 8088. I remember vividly using selectors and working in real and protected mode. I have always been a windows programmer now specialising in .net (c#, C++ .... ). I only found out about this recently. :eek:
 
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