windows and ram?

[Bokranator]

a lil birdie told me that the max amount of ram that a 32 bit system of windows can handle is 2gb. is this true? and whats the system limits for xp and vista?

[[Dr. V]]

It's actually around 3GB. If you have 4GB installed, a 32-bit version of Windows has to use part of the RAM for addresses and some other crap.

If you wanna have all your RAM usable as system RAM and you have over 3GB, you need to run a 64-bit OS.

ANY 32-bit OS is like this.

[coshkara]

I think that all depends on the operating system, I am pretty sure Vista recognises more then 2g but Ill look arround and see if i can find anything on this and get back to you. Well Stix beat me to it, although my machine reads I have 4 gigs in vista so not sure if its a waste for me or not.

[Jokerswild]

Xp 32 bit OS limit is 4 gig but it won't recognize all of it. The 64 bit systems will recognize 128 gb of ram.

[[Dr. V]]

Yep. Used as system RAM is only about 3GB. 64-bit OSs were used very exclusively for servers for the longest time because of its 128GB limit, and even 2GB was considered SO SO SO SO high end, so 32-bit was doing just fine. Now 64-bit OSs are MUCH more public because systems are starting to accommodate 4GB+ of RAM.

[gvblake22]

A 32-bit operating system will recognize up to about 3.5GB of system memory.
Check this out...

The biggest issue facing those considering a 4GB kit is that 32-bit Operating Systems (notice I said "SystemS", as in plural? This isn't just a Microsoft issue) suffer from a 4GB memory access limit. While I wish I could say everyone understood this, it only takes a cursory look around the web to see that many people are baffled, and even pretty pissed off when they plug a 4GB kit into a 32-bit OS and only 3 to 3.5GB of memory gets recognized. 32-bit operating systems suffer from a 4GB memory limit

[Bokranator]

so erm is dere a need for my frankenstien rig to be 64 bit if im only going to use it for music production, gaming and internet search. would the hardware/ software compatability issues be serious?

[Jokerswild]

There's no need at this point but more than 4gig of ram in the future is probably a sure bet.

[wtcnbrwndo4u]

Trust me man, 2GB is more than plenty, even in a Vista rig. I'm running with 2GB now. Memory usage idles anywhere from 40% and 55%. Of course, I'm running other things, but Vista eats a lot of memory. Although it eats it from a glance, Vista will reorder processes to give priority to what you are running.

[Bokranator]

i see is there a marked gaming difference between the 32 and 64 bit systems? and i know its off topic but is an e6700 enough to play future dx 10 pc games?