Reply to: Vista 32bit

[stingman123]

Have you got EMM386 loaded in your config.sys?

Jesus, that statement just scared the knackers out of me!

[PRC1964]

What about upgrading to 64-bit Vista? Apparently that makes full use of 4gb main memory..

*cough*

(Centrino Duo - so Vista 64bit is out!)

[Swamp Thing]

Absolutely!

What about Windows 7, does that offer better support?

Also VMWare...?

What about upgrading to 64-bit Vista? Apparently that makes full use of 4gb main memory..

[NickFitz]

You're not familiar with the concept of "Bank Switching" then, eh?

Don't you worry your pretty little head about it.

Churchill - In "What do they teach kids these days" mode?

Of course I am, which is why I referred to limitations of hardware architecture as well as the processor's addressing capabilities. The PC architecture doesn't support bank switching - at least not in any way that would allow you to have access to 4GB of RAM.

EDIT: Oops, just realised you were responding to _V_ - still, we were both making the same point, so I might as well let this one stand

[Churchill]

What I've never understood is this:

Each process has its own 4GB address space that's mapped onto real memory/swap file by the OS. So in theory a 32-bit OS could support a lot more than 4GB, but limiting each individual process to a maximum of 4GB, as long as the processor supported it (which I believe modern ones do with PAE) and the OS had enough bits in its mapping algorithm.

So why don't we have that?

Absolutely!

What about Windows 7, does that offer better support?

Also VMWare...?

[VectraMan]

What I've never understood is this:

Each process has its own 4GB address space that's mapped onto real memory/swap file by the OS. So in theory a 32-bit OS could support a lot more than 4GB, but limiting each individual process to a maximum of 4GB, as long as the processor supported it (which I believe modern ones do with PAE) and the OS had enough bits in its mapping algorithm.

So why don't we have that?

[voodooflux]

WHS. I was going to link to Raymond Chen's post, but Jeff links to it in that article, so no need

I did think about linking to Raymond Chen's article directly, Jeff has better pictures though

There's another good post on this over on Mark Russinovich's blog.

[Churchill]

Swap it out to where? And if you did swap it outside of the 4GB address space, the screen would go blank?

Get over it. What 1/2 gig lost anyways?

You're not familiar with the concept of "Bank Switching" then, eh?

Don't you worry your pretty little head about it.

Churchill - In "What do they teach kids these days" mode?

[NickFitz]

Dude, Where's My 4 Gigabytes of RAM?

WHS. I was going to link to Raymond Chen's post, but Jeff links to it in that article, so no need

FFS, surely I can swap the video ram in and out?

As Jeff explains, it's a processor/hardware architecture thing. There's nowhere to swap it to

[_V_]

No service pack on earth will fix this!

The address space is 4GB, the graphics adapter in the laptop occupies 512MB, the sound card ~32mb.

Therefore, the remainder is available to address the RAM.

FFS, surely I can swap the video ram in and out?

Swap it out to where? And if you did swap it outside of the 4GB address space, the screen would go blank?

Get over it. What 1/2 gig lost anyways?

[VectraMan]

Have you got EMM386 loaded in your config.sys?

[Churchill]

Have you installed the latest Service Pack for Vista? I know with XP SP3, this issue was resolved... I believe it has been fixed in Vista as well.

No service pack on earth will fix this!

The address space is 4GB, the graphics adapter in the laptop occupies 512MB, the sound card ~32mb.

Therefore, the remainder is available to address the RAM.

FFS, surely I can swap the video ram in and out?

[pmeswani]

Ok, increased RAm on my Laptop to 4GB!

Vista reports 4GB in the "System" dialog.

However, "Task Manager" will only utilise 3GB!

WTF?

Surely the display memory can be paged out!

FFS!

Now I know why so many new laptops have 3GB installed!

SPF!

Any ideas?

(Centrino Duo - so Vista 64bit is out!)

Have you installed the latest Service Pack for Vista? I know with XP SP3, this issue was resolved... I believe it has been fixed in Vista as well.

[Churchill]

Yup, I know but when I had an Atari 130XE with 1mb of RAM, surely I can have an equivalent with my PC!

(6502 has 64k address space but with paging could access more!)

[TheFaQQer]

IIRC, the extra might be used by the graphics card instead, but apart from that there's not much you can do.

I found that out on my last 4GB laptop.