Question regarding Windows 32 and 64 bit versions.

[EeelEeet]

I've heard that Windows only recognized upto 2.5 or 3.5 gigabytes of RAM on a system running 32bit Windows. Is this true? I'm current building a system (from Yoyotech, do I get a quicker response now? ) and I've got 2gb of RAM in but I'm very likely to expand to 4gb in the near future. Will I need to buy Windows Vista 64bit to utilize this? I wasn't really all that keen on it and was going to just get XP but alas XP does not support 64bit...

2 questions really.
1. Do I actually need to get Vista?
2. What is the REAL benefits of Vista? Personal experiences and such things are very welcome.

Thanks!

[YOYOtech - Mark]

hi there, any 32bit o/s system will only see approx 3.17 gb of memory - due to the address mapping of other parts of the pc.....
vista 64bit will see up to 8 gb of memory.....
vista in my opion is a very nice o/s system - but it does take a lot of getting use to....

hope this helps
mark

[EeelEeet]

hi there, any 32bit o/s system will only see approx 3.17 gb of memory - due to the address mapping of other parts of the pc.....
vista 64bit will see up to 8 gb of memory.....
vista in my opion is a very nice o/s system - but it does take a lot of getting use to....

hope this helps
mark

Whats it like for gaming?

Thats pretty much all I'm going to be using it for...

I've got a dual core proccessor, 2gb RAM and a 8800 GT XFX, will XP hold that back or will Vista make it better?

[cheesyboofs]

FYI, XP comes in 64Bit too.

[dangel]

FYI, XP comes in 64Bit too.

But has relatively poor support as compared to Vista 64. MS force vendors to support 64bit for Vista.

[EeelEeet]

I read on wiki that Windows discontinued XP 64bit.

Is it true that 64bit versions of windows wont support 32bit programs such as the aforementioned games? Or do modern games come with patches to support 64 bit? Or are these two sentences utter twaddle?

[dangel]

64bit windows has layer that handles running 32bit programs - so yes, you can still run all your 32bit software. Most of the stuff i've got installed is 32bit and it all runs fine.

[YOYOtech - Mark]

hi there - yes there was a xp64 edition - but it was only really a stop gap between xp and vista64....

it has been discontinued now - so you have no choice but to go for vista 64 bit.....

as for play games with vista 64bit - we have had mixed views instore....

most people would go for xp for gaming....

hope this helps

mark

[Blitzen]

hi there - yes there was a xp64 edition - but it was only really a stop gap between xp and vista64....

it has been discontinued now - so you have no choice but to go for vista 64 bit.....

as for play games with vista 64bit - we have had mixed views instore....

most people would go for xp for gaming....

hope this helps

mark

I game with Vista Ultimate 64Bit and everything runs great.

Big FPS and no instability/lag.

[digital-one]

your motherboard will also need PAE *Physical address Extension, its not down to the os on its own that the 3gb limitation exists.

With windows XP it will recognise about 3.7GB of 4GB - if your motherboard also recognises 4GB so for 32 bit XP build 2600 sp2 or sp3 owners buying more than 4GB is a complete waste of time and money.

With Vista, again only the 64bit AND providing the motherboard can take more than 4GB recognise more than 4GB of physical RAM.

AND its all micrsofts fault - because they said 640k was enough for everyone for life. and every single computer to this date has that basic concept 640k and everything else is "extended"

[EeelEeet]

Well.

Taking all evidence into account I shall purchase Windows XP, 32bit obviously.

Do I get a discount for contributing on the forums? ()

[dangel]

With windows XP it will recognise about 3.7GB of 4GB

No, it depends on your hardware configuration - the limitation is 32bits of addressing which has to be shared between all the devices on your system. The PC copes with this by not addressing all your system memory so you can (for example) still address all your devices (better to have a lower memory pool than not be able to use a graphics card..). Usually the biggest effect on the pool is the size of the graphics card's memory that you have installed (all other devices use comparitively little addressing space) - so if I have a 1GB graphics card it'll cost me 1GB of my 4GB of memory alone (and then the other devices in the system will subtract from that too) leaving me with less than 3GB free.

AND its all micrsofts fault - because they said 640k was enough for everyone for life. and every single computer to this date has that basic concept 640k and everything else is "extended"

Not at all - 32bit has the same hardware limitation on all OS' - it's nothing to do with Microsoft (other than that they needed to provided a 64bit operating system).
When was the last time you saw your bios count to 640k and then continue? It's long gone matey.

[digital-one]

@dangel I didnt go into it much there are far too many factors involved, i did say "its not down to the os on its own" & the motherboard needs to be able also to recognise the ram. I never really addressed the how and why of it, i didnt see the point for that reason.. The 640k bit at the end was a joke - i seperated it from the main text as a one liner end quote kind of thing, i wasnt being serious at that point. I think 3.7gb of recognised ram is fair, because even if we debated every single address available down to every component, many share. But overall i maintain the point my post is correct, it might not be a technical manual of why, but it did at least have the valid points in it.

[dangel]

@dangel I didnt go into it much there are far too many factors involved, i did say "its not down to the os on its own" & the motherboard needs to be able also to recognise the ram. I never really addressed the how and why of it, i didnt see the point for that reason.. The 640k bit at the end was a joke - i seperated it from the main text as a one liner end quote kind of thing, i wasnt being serious at that point. I think 3.7gb of recognised ram is fair, because even if we debated every single address available down to every component, many share. But overall i maintain the point my post is correct, it might not be a technical manual of why, but it did at least have the valid points in it.

I didn't say you didn't make valid points mate - sorry if I offended you
This question gets asked a lot and there's a lot of misconception about it. TBH the easiest way to work out the probable amount of RAM you'll get is knocking off the video memory (the rest of the devices use very little address space typically) and most people will see around the 3.25gb mark. 3.7 is a little high given the average size of video memory thesedays - i used 4-1gb = 3gb in my example for simplicity.

Cheers

[Zero Gravity]

so if i vista 32bit, it syill ok to have 4gb memory,
thou that it will show only 3.2gb ?

maybe later i might change to 64bit

[Caroline]

Zero, that's exactly the solution I've gone for. I have 4gb RAM and am running 32bit Vista (and I play games a lot too, not had any problems since the earliest days). I deliberately bought the Home Premium Upgrade version of Vista and used the 'clean install' trick because I understand you can then get the 64bit version for a nominal sum.

The theory is I will upgrade to 64bit some time during the life of the machine -64bit is getting more popular all the time, so problems and compatibility will gradually get ironed out.

Caroline