System Memory, 32vs64BitOS, 4GB barrier

[zanthor]

We all know it's a fact that you can't utilize more than 3.2~gb of ram on a windows 32 bit system. We all know that for more than 4GB y ou must have a 64 bit OS. for the longest time I played with 4GB on Vista32 without significant problems.

I would use about 2.6gb of ram out in the world and around 2.9gb in shattrah. Everything was fine and dandy for Team Doublemint, which was setup with the paladin as the leader with medium graphic settings (clip plane being the only one that really affects memory notably) and the other 4 being set very minimal (wall of fog vision).

I switched to playing 5 shaman primarily, using PIP and having setup the configuration to have no specified leader I quickly found that minimal graphics settings were a hindrance. I setup the 5 clients with 50% clip plane, all other settings the same as they were for the paladin. A relatively heavy UI (same as I used for the pally), etc.

Memory usage on Vista32: 2.8gb in the world, 3.2gb in shattrah... in Shattrah I would lag so bad I couldn't successfully traverse town if I tried running all 5 through... 4 was fine.

So I upgraded to Vista 64. Same system, same wow install, same UI, etc...

Now I'm using 3.2gb of ram out in the world, this is higher, and I'd assume this is due to the 32 bit application overhead in a 64 bit OS.
In shattrah I'm using about 3.6gb-3.8gb of ram, with a bit of room to spare the system runs fine. I ran through at prime time last night, it was by far the busiest I'd seen Shattrah in ages, and had no performance issues. I went ahead and bumped the clip plane out to max on all 5 clients, I started paging ram again from the extra overhead... that last 50% really makes wow look better, but since characters/npc models dont load in the last half, it's really just cosmetic.

To be on the safe side I'm upgrading to 8gb of ram, of course the only reason I'm going from 4gb to 8gb is I have 4x1gb sticks right now, and I prefer matched memory so I'm going to bump up to 4x2gb sticks...

All said and done I believe I should be able to run 5x clients with full clip planes once this is done.

[Oatboat]

good to know... i'm kind of at that point in Alterac Valley. Never had a big problem in towns due to my server being so underpopulated, but in AV when the big fights start... a little hesitation from the cpu = dead leader = mad me. I might try me some upgrades too... got 4 gigs of ram and 768 card atm in my xp pro box...which doesnt really do me anygood anyway.

[wowphreak]

Just to nitpick a lil :P 32bit os can see up to 4 gigs to free up some of the memory when dont see all of it, go into yer bios and reduce the amount of memory that's dedicated to the graphics card. Vista 64 has the same issues but its not gonna matter since yeh can use more then 4 gigs.

One thing I advocate if yer gonna get vista get 64bit version and get at least 8 gigs of ram.

[Sajuuk]

Going up to 8gb as well, more a shattrath performance issue, as well as gearing up for the expansion.

[BobGnarly]

Just to nitpick a lil :P 32bit os can see up to 4 gigs to free up some of the memory when dont see all of it, go into yer bios and reduce the amount of memory that's dedicated to the graphics card. Vista 64 has the same issues but its not gonna matter since yeh can use more then 4 gigs.

One thing I advocate if yer gonna get vista get 64bit version and get at least 8 gigs of ram.

Hopefully you won't mind if I nitpick back a little?

While it's true that a 32-bit OS can see 4G, it can't use all 4G because there is a hole at the top of memory for MMIO. I'm not aware of any bios settings that let you reduce this (at least I know mine has none, which field are you talking about?), and even if there were, you'd be taking a big risk that somebody isn't going to assume that memory is mapped - many drivers do. In my experience, this memory is as good as lost.

Vista 64 does still allocate MMIO at the top of the 32-bit segment (only for driver compatibility reasons), but it does not have the same issue as vista 32 because the memory that is obscured can be remapped somewhere higher in the address range (beyond the 4G boundary). IOW, you will be able to use all 4G in a 4G system under vista 64.

[kermitforney]

Zanthor, what are your sys specs? I am very interested.

[wowphreak]

Its all good bob :P

Yeh some mobo wont let yeh reduce the amount of memory used.

Bur considering that any 32bit app cant use more then 2-3 gigs of memory anyways it really dont matter if it uses the first 4 gigs or the last ... :P

[zanthor]

Zanthor, what are your sys specs? I am very interested.

Athlon Phenom 9600 (TLB Eratta ) with the eratta disabled.
4GB of pretty much off the shelf DDR2 (4x1gb)
Four SATA 3.0gb drives. Two are 500gb two are 320gb.
XFX 8800GT with 512mb
Antec 650w PSU

[Griznah]

When I started boxing, I really praised the fact that I bought 8gig ram for my new computer (bought summer 2008).
Been running Vista64 Ultimate since day1 with Aero on, and no big troubles.