Windows xp and 4gb of ram

[PyrostasisTDK]

Ok I apologize I know this has been covered in a thread here... but the wonderful search feature cant seem to locate it. Spent an hour googling and such and cant seem to find anything out definitively.

I recently downgraded to xp and was told there is something in the boot.ini I can add that will allow xp to recognize 4gb of ram... is this true? If so, anyone know the command and where to put it?

@Wilbur and Xzin- I DID SEARCH I DID! **crys**

[Suvega]

I'm assuming 32 bit windows.

You'll never have more then 3.5 gb probabbly.

This is because of a 32bit address space can only address 4 gb total of ram. That includes memory ont he Mobo and on your video card.
Every mb on your video card has priority over your main memory, so if you have a card with 512 mb of video ram, the max you can have of system ram is 3.5 gb.

Install vista ultimate and suck it up imo :)
(it works fine, I have 5 comptuers with it)

[NightFire]

there is something you can add to the boot.ini file, but it rarely works. I've done it to 8 computers, it didn't work on any of them. I do not remember what to add.

[JoeWunsch]

Ok I apologize I know this has been covered in a thread here... but the wonderful search feature cant seem to locate it. Spent an hour googling and such and cant seem to find anything out definitively.

I recently downgraded to xp and was told there is something in the boot.ini I can add that will allow xp to recognize 4gb of ram... is this true? If so, anyone know the command and where to put it?

@Wilbur and Xzin- I DID SEARCH I DID! **crys**As far as I know, the boot.ini modification is only for windows server OS's (and apparently windows 2000 to from this article)

Try reading this article --

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/283037

[Xaero1369]

....or, you could aquire a copy of Windows XP Pro 64bit like I have. Coming from trying Vista Ultimate 64bit with 4GB of RAM to XP 64bit, the performance difference is amazing. Vista is just plain a resource hog & it's not like we really need DX 10 for WoW anyway. XP Pro 64bit FTW!! By the way, I've seen it on Newegg.com for $140, you can find it cheaper as I was able to get a copy for $95, but not from a well known & trusted vendor like Newegg. Of course there's always the pirating method, which most don't condone & since M$ has cracked down on activation with invalid or blacklisted keys, it's probably just worth it to shell out the cash. That's my 2¢. (hold Alt & press 0162 on numpad for ¢ symbol) ASCII codes are fun to play with.

[PyrostasisTDK]

yeah Ill probably get a xp 64 bit version... Vista and me just dont get a long

[Klamor]

how do you tell what version of xp you have? is it the color quality thing in settings? (i only have 2gb of ram so it doesn't really affect me but i would like to know :D )

[NightFire]

I've been kinda standoffish with any of the 64 bit windows... is XP 64 bit better supported and more stable now??

[Maxion]

how do you tell what version of xp you have? is it the color quality thing in settings? (i only have 2gb of ram so it doesn't really affect me but i would like to know :D )No, the bit value of your color settings has nothing to do with your windows version. I think you can check your windows version in your system properties (either right click my computer and hit properties (if you are running it in classic mode), or go to system in control panel (both are the same thing anyway)).

[beyond-tec]

I've been kinda standoffish with any of the 64 bit windows... is XP 64 bit better supported and more stable now??

tbh:
I'm currently using Windows Vista Ultimate 64
and it's working sweeeeeet like honey.

No crashes, no problems, everything works smooth.

Got some Error-Msgs when you end several tools but that's not a crash
it's just a warning message that you need to apply because he hasn't found a file.

[Djarid]

Yeah I just installed Vista ultimate 64 and it is nice so far... I have everything working fine and it seems stable.... Why oh Why did I install it on my 17Gb SCSI drive though... I only had 1Gb free after the install. Turning off system restore helped a little but still 12Gb for an OS install WTF!

[PyrostasisTDK]

You didnt hear? Vista eats memory like a fat girl eats cake... and shes HUNNNNNGRY

[beyond-tec]

You didnt hear? Vista eats memory like a fat girl eats cake... and shes HUNNNNNGRY

8 Gigs

4 wow sessions

3 GB RAM left.

so, who cares? :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[Ozbert]

32-bit XP won't be able to see a full 4GB under any circumstances. It can only address 4GB maximum, and there will always be some address space used up by devices.

There's a /3GB switch you can put in boot.ini, but what that does is allow a single process to address 3GB of memory instead of the default 2GB limit.

[asgradth]

As mentioned above, with XP x86 (32-bit), you can see ~ 3.54GB of physical memory with 4GB of physical memory installed. It's a limitation of 32-bit mode, literally, in 32-bit you can only address 4GB of physical memory, every 32-bit OS has this issue, although there are various workarounds for Linux.

Edit your Boot.ini file and on the line that reads:
multi(0)disk(0)...etc...="Microsoft Windows XP etc ..."
add: /PAE : to the end of that line.

This will enable the Physical Address Extension capabilites of XP and allow the 3.54 GB to be seen. We do this all the time @ my job so we can run speccpu2006 in a 32-bit environment on a 1P/4Core system (spec2k6 in 32-bit mode only requires 1gb of memory per core).

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/pae_os.mspx

[Suvega]

64bit windows vista ultimate works fine, and it's MUCH more stable then xp 64bit.

It uses more memory, so it doesn't page as often, that's actually itended. The more memory you have the more it usees for the OS to allow less disk access. that BOOSTS performance.

Top listening to the raveing anti-fanbois and get the only operating system that will support what you want, and ACTUALLY BE SUPPORTED in the future :)

<3 Suvega

[Clanked]

You didnt hear? Vista eats memory like a fat girl eats cake... and shes HUNNNNNGRY

Un-used RAM is wasted RAM.

[archer75]

You didnt hear? Vista eats memory like a fat girl eats cake... and shes HUNNNNNGRYThat's not quite true. What Vista is doing is using your idle ram to cache your commonly used apps/games so they launch faster. In XP your ram sits idle doing nothing.
As time goes on Vista monitors your computing habits and gets a feel for what you like to use the most. It then caches those apps and games to ram so they launch very fast. And when an app needs more ram Vista frees it up instantly.

I am running Vista x64 since beta and it's always been fast and stable. Of course this is entirely dependent on hardware vendors providing you with quality drivers. Nvidia seems to have the biggest problems with Vista drivers. I have an Intel motherboard chipset and ATI video card and I take absolutely no performance loss in Vista over XP. In fact some of my games are faster in Vista.

[wowphreak]

Dont modify yer boot.ini you dont need to.

Just for emphasis Windows is a 32bit os that can use up to 4 gigs of ram.

Windows see the whole 4gigs If yeh got one of those cheap graphics cards that uses the main memory then yeh will see less.
If yeh have a graphics cards with a good amount of memory what yeh can do is go into the bios and reduce the amount of main memory assigned to the graphics card

You dont need the /3gb /pae or any other switch it wont make a difference with wow.

Make sure yeh got the latest services patch before yeh go online :P

if yeh actually read http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/pae_os.mspx
direct qoute " PAE is the second method supported to ACCESS MEMORY ABOVE 4GB"

[Zerocool2024]

Well, for my rigs at work, we are modeling some rather large assemblies that take up a lot of space/memory/cpu. We are using XP32 and I have currently 4 gigs on mine. At first, I ran it without the switch till I found it. While using my modeling program, it would crash/run out of memory ...etc etc, so after I added the switch, it stopped doing that and it runs a hell of a lot smother. So, if you wish to use 32, by all means, use the switch, you will gain performance out of it, but then again, it's only going to read 3.5, so, go with 64 vista or xp to get more ram if that is the end result you are going after.

[Bollwerk]

Well, for my rigs at work, we are modeling some rather large assemblies that take up a lot of space/memory/cpu. We are using XP32 and I have currently 4 gigs on mine. At first, I ran it without the switch till I found it. While using my modeling program, it would crash/run out of memory ...etc etc, so after I added the switch, it stopped doing that and it runs a hell of a lot smother. So, if you wish to use 32, by all means, use the switch, you will gain performance out of it, but then again, it's only going to read 3.5, so, go with 64 vista or xp to get more ram if that is the end result you are going after.
There's a /3GB switch you can put in boot.ini, but what that does is allow a single process to address 3GB of memory instead of the default 2GB limit.Therefore, the /3GB switch will not help people who multibox on the same machine.