XP-sp2 with 4gb ram.

[John--O]

Is it worth going for 4gb DDR with XP-sp2 (32bit)? I have heard that this OS can only see, at max, 3.25 gb. If 4gb physical ram is installed, how is the "virtual" memory accordingly set (the swap or paging file)? Can this still follow the usual 1.5x rule and be set to 6gb which would put combined memory at a whopping 10gb, which doesn't quite make sense? I believe that Sweetwater offers 4gb XP systems. How is swap file configured on these?

[EC_Beast]

There's quite a difference between physical memory, and virtual memory, mainly that virtual memory is essentially just a buffer. Now, onto the meat of the question. The amount of memory windows will see is dependent on a few factors, those being the motherboard, the BIOS, and how the installation of the memory (installing in the wrong DIMM slots can decrease memory seen, and/or the speed of it). So yes, it's possible, just do your research on the motherboard.

[skunk3]

:eek: I thought that windows xp could only detect 2 gb of ram max?

Is there really a way to have a system with 4 gigs?

[Energy Recruitment]

ust installed 4 gigs of ram into my XP system. (Had 2 gigs - saw all of it, upgraded to 4 gigs) Bios sees all 4 gigs but system only sees 2.75 gigs. I have two 512 meg 8800 GT’s running in SLI. My friends computer is practically identical except he only has 1 8800 GT and his available ram is 3.3 gigs.
Are my video cards sucking up a gig of my available ram? Seems odd. I’m running an nVidia 680i SLi motherboard, Intel QX6850 Extreme Quad Core, overclocked to 3.66, dual 8800 GT’s in SLi mode, 2 SATA 750 gig drives in RAID 0 mode (1.36T stripe) and 4 gigs (4 x 1 gig) Corsair Dominator DDR2 ram running at 2.2 volts (1066 MGz overclocked). Was it worth buying the extra 2 gigs or what? If I’m only seeing an extra 750 megs of ram out of it?

[tigaroda]

:eek: I thought that windows xp could only detect 2 gb of ram max?

Is there really a way to have a system with 4 gigs?

I don`t think so, Friend...
yes, better use 2 gb of ram..than use higher than that..
Because RAM work optimal and OS support.
I think 2gb is enough..

[brandavies]

I know this is an old topic, but still. :P From what I understand, 4gb of ram on XP32 can actually yield less than optimal results. Some would say slower, but in truth it's just "not as fast". 2gb is, as they say, the "sweet spot" for ram in XP32, yielding the most efficient use of memory and best results. 4GB is supposedly the sweet spot for Vista64, right now. Anyway, hope that helps some. ;P

[Justin]

A 32-bit system can only generate integers that are 32-bits long.
This means when the system maps out the memory, it can only create addresses using a range of numbers that will fit in that 32-bit long value.

So, we're handing out RAM addresses like mailbox numbers. 4GB is where we run out of room for new numbers.

Here's the catch. All the memory in the system has to get addresses to be used, and system resources have to come first, so things like the cache on the CPU and hard drives, and the video card RAM get their addresses first. Then the system gives the remaining addresses to RAM.

So, if you have 1GB of RAM in your two video cards, that shaves down how much Windows can address. I'm in the same boat, I use a 1GB 9800GT, so my system cap is 3GB (less cpu cache, hd cache, etc).

Most systems end up with 3.0 to 3.5 GB being available after all their resources are accounted for.