Vista Ultimate 32bit & 4GB ram

[Andy.]

I have 2GB currently but there is a really good offer on so I thought I would double it.

I had a quick google to check and it sounds like it is not possible to get more than 3GB of ram working in Vista 32.

Has anybody here managed it or is it a complete no go?

When Vista uses 1 GB just running itself, to only allow you to have 2GB free seems a bit of a shortcoming in my eyes..

 

[Griff]

Vista x86 can support 4gb BUT that has to include Vram as well so in essence you'll need to upgrade to x64.

 

[Andy.]

Google did not provide the answer for me but what is x86 and how do i know if I have it?

 

[Griff]

x86 - 32 bit architecture

x64 - 64 bit architecture

 

[Andy.]

Cheers. I'll save my cash then.

 

[Adams_16v]

save ur money, no need for 4gb mate and as said you'll only get around 3gb anyway from 4gb total ram

 

[Mike_182]

4Gb if its cheap is worth having... IMO. And my pc can be found somewhere on here - it's no toy...

 

[Adam K]

i have vista ultimate 32bit with 4gb ram and it shows up as 3455mb.

 

[dk]

x86 - 32 bit architecture

x64 - 64 bit architecture

yes, X64 is still X86 technology but with 64 bit extensions so some people shorten it from X86-64 to just X64, its still 32bit architecture. 64 bit architecture is IA64 which is the Itanium range of processors that are 64bit only.

A 32 bit operating system like vista or win 2k3 can take 4gb ram but will only see 3.5gb like adam is experiencing, it uses 500mb for something else, can't remember what it is off the top of my head.

 

[dk]

Vista x86 can support 4gb BUT that has to include Vram as well so in essence you'll need to upgrade to x64.

as griff says, the 4gb limit includes the pagefile so if you can get rid of the pagefile it should show the full 4gb, you could do this in XP, not sure about vista though.

 

[steelee]

If you are running 32-bit Windows, you must live with it. You will not ever see all 4GB of RAM


If you are running 64-bit Windows, you may have to live with it. Depending on your motherboard's chipset your system may support memory remapping. If so you will be able to use all 4GB of RAM.
this is due to an architectural decision made long ago, if you have 4GB of physical RAM installed, Windows is only able to report a portion of the physical 4GB of RAM (ranges from ~2.75GB to 3.5GB depending on the devices installed, motherboard's chipset & BIOS).
This behavior is due to "memory mapped IO reservations". Those reservations overlay the physical address space and mask out those physical addresses so that they cannot be used for working memory. This is independent of the OS running on the machine. Significant chunks of address space below 4GB (the highest address accessible via 32-bit) get reserved for use by system hardware such as the BIOS, PCI bus and PCI Express. What this means is a typical system may see between ~256MB and 1GB of address space below 4GB reserved for hardware use that the OS cannot access. Intel chipset specs are pretty good at explaining what address ranges gets reserved by default and in some cases call out that 1.5GB is always reserved and thus inaccessible to Windows

 

[Munson]

Vista x86 can support 4gb BUT that has to include Vram as well so in essence you'll need to upgrade to x64.

as griff says, the 4gb limit includes the pagefile so if you can get rid of the pagefile it should show the full 4gb, you could do this in XP, not sure about vista though.

Surely the page file is on disc though? That's the whole point of it isn't it? Ergo virtual (and extremely slow) memory?

 

[BRUN]

just stick another 1Gb stick in instead and save some money

 

[rich[182]]

There are some workarrounds in 32 bit OS's where it's possible to see most of the 4Gb but it depends on your hardware and several other factors, but even if your one of the 1 in 100 people who are lucky enough to achieve this it comes at the price of system stability for circa 3.6GB but all this if you have a 256Mb graphics card max memory

Also many threads at OCUK about 2GB + 1GB combination giving poorer performance than 2GB + 2GB even though youve still got @3GB useable

 

[wozzaa]

Read the link below and it explains everything.

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000811.html