Windows XP and RAM limitations

[stevenrw]

I'm looking to increase the RAM on my XP home machine. I've been told that the 32bit version of XP Home will only recognise up to 2 gb of RAM. To get any benefit from doubling it to 4Gb I need to change the OS to XP Pro 64 bit.
Anybody heard of this one? I'm reluctant to pay out for 64bit XP (which will cost much more than the memory upgrade of course) then have to upgrade again in a couple of years when the replacement for the sorry mess that is Vista becomes a realistic proposition.

[Glenn]

Steve, a 32bit OS can address approximately 3.2 - 3.5Gb of ram. 64 bit XP is available http://www.kikatek.com/product_info.php?products_id=29037&source=froogle not sure if that is the correct version though

[kinmel]

Glen is correct, an explanation on RAM and Windows XP is given by H.P.

You can download the PDF file

[Sebby]

I would just install 3GB in total and that should be fine, rather than going for the 64-bit version of XP.

[stevenrw]

I was thinking along those lines also Sebby. Seems that having to spend maybe £75 on an OS just to get 1GB more RAM in isn't logical especially given the likely lifespan remaining in XP.
However, assuming I do stick with my existing XP home and put in 3gb, will I still get benefit from the Mobo's dual channel architecture? That's more to do with data processing througput to/from the cpu than available RAM isn't it?

[Glenn]

XP's offical support is now to 2014 for retail and business versions.

[Rik]

Is that support in terms of help, or support in terms of updates, Glenn?

[gizmo71]

However, assuming I do stick with my existing XP home and put in 3gb, will I still get benefit from the Mobo's dual channel architecture? That's more to do with data processing througput to/from the cpu than available RAM isn't it?

If you add 2x512M to the existing (presumably) 1x1G you should still get dual channel - check your mobo details but normally you only need matched pairs.

TBH you might as well add 2x1G and ignore the fact that .5-.8G won't be used.

[Rik]

I agree, Giz, the extra cost is usually minimal.

[stevenrw]

Just to be clear then, assuming the board has 4 slots, 4x1gb sticks with the 32bit OS will give me the "bonus" of using the Dual channel feature where I will "Lose" perhaps 0.8gb I will still see better processing speed than with just 3 sticks. As you say, RAM is only about £15/gb nowadays.
Either way that's got to be more economic than buying a new OS. Who knows, maybe the new one will have some magic to recognise more ram anyway?
Sadly there does seem to be a hit on latency reported using 1gb sticks over 512's but them's the breaks I suppose.

[Rik]

You've got it. 

[Sebby]

Just to be clear then, assuming the board has 4 slots, 4x1gb sticks with the 32bit OS will give me the "bonus" of using the Dual channel feature where I will "Lose" perhaps 0.8gb I will still see better processing speed than with just 3 sticks. As you say, RAM is only about £15/gb nowadays.
Either way that's got to be more economic than buying a new OS. Who knows, maybe the new one will have some magic to recognise more ram anyway?
Sadly there does seem to be a hit on latency reported using 1gb sticks over 512's but them's the breaks I suppose.

Correct, except you could use 2x1GB sticks and 2x512MB and still benefit from dual channel.

[stevenrw]

Thanks guys for your input. Accurate and timely as always.
Much appreciated.

[john]

This may make things clearer : http://members.shaw.ca/bsanders/WindowsGeneralWeb/RAMVirtualMemoryPageFileEtc.htm

[Rik]

Bring back QEMM I say.

[Sebby]

Had to look that one up! For those that are interested:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QEMM

[Rik]

 

Every boy had a copy back in the day, Seb.

[Sebby]

[Rik]

Dealers used to look at you askance if you asked for 1MB of RAM back then, they saw it as wasteful.

[Sebby]

Well, given that Bill Gates said we'd only need 640kb, it would have been considered wasteful.

[Rik]

That really was the attitude at the time, Seb. Indeed, I can remember some incredulity at Adobe when a user built a machine with a gig of RAM, about 15 years ago, and Photoshop fell over because of it. Times certainly change.

[kinmel]

Dealers used to look at you askance if you asked for 1MB of RAM back then, they saw it as wasteful.

I remember having to drive all the way to Shire Hall for a meeting with the I.T. Dept because we needed an IBM PC-AT with 1 meg of RAM to run some Canadian vehicle routing software.

[Rik]

Happy days, Alan, where we used to be byte misers and software was smaller and more efficient.

[kinmel]

Happy days, Alan, where we used to be byte misers and software was smaller and more efficient.

The good old days Rik, when 64k was considered over the top, the ZX81 came with 1K and you could upgrade to 16K !  It is amazing what was achieved with those old computers

[Rik]

It was, Alan. I can remember coding in assembler to make it faster and smaller. I used to burn apps onto EPROMs for the Beeb. Writing in BASIC, all variable names were skinned down to save space, and the number of concatenated lines of code were painful. It didn't make for good reading, but every byte counted.

[Sebby]

A lot of bloatware these days could probably learn a thing or two from that, Rik.

[Rik]

It would be good, Seb. Stuff did run fast back then, if we could run the same code on new processors, it would be like greased lightning.

[Sebby]

I'm convinced that large software companies have agreements with processor manufacturers to make applications more demanding over time. That's not to say that applications don't naturally get more demanding over time, because they do, but I'm not sure whether to this extent.

[Rik]

I'm sure you're right, plus it's cheaper to write stuff with languages that bloat the finished result than it is to hand code.

[Odos]

Just to be clear then, assuming the board has 4 slots, 4x1gb sticks with the 32bit OS will give me the "bonus" of using the Dual channel feature where I will "Lose" perhaps 0.8gb I will still see better processing speed than with just 3 sticks. As you say, RAM is only about £15/gb nowadays.
Either way that's got to be more economic than buying a new OS. Who knows, maybe the new one will have some magic to recognise more ram anyway?
Sadly there does seem to be a hit on latency reported using 1gb sticks over 512's but them's the breaks I suppose.

Everything said so far is correct as far as it goes, I would still say go for 4 gig and not 3. The reason being that although having 4gig installed only shows up as 3.25gig to any applications etc the rest of the "lost" memory can actually be used for paging puposes by the OS when certain registry entries are modified.

I did this on my 32bit OS's when I installed them and no I can't remember what I did  It's a long, long time since I did a "fresh" install of a 32bit OS with more than 2 gig of memory ( I tend to use just 64bit these days ). I can remember finding out about this at the time by googling so I'm sure google would be your friend if your interested 

[wecpcs]

That really was the attitude at the time, Seb. Indeed, I can remember some incredulity at Adobe when a user built a machine with a gig of RAM, about 15 years ago, and Photoshop fell over because of it. Times certainly change.

I had that problem a few years ago when I was using a cut-down version of Adobe which came free with a scanner and it did the job I wanted, but when I upgraded the ram at that time from 512Mb to one 1Gb it reported that I did not have enough memory installed. After approaching Adobe support they basically said I had to upgrade to Photoshop Elements, which I reluctantly did, but it was overkill for what I wanted apart from the extra expense. Luckily I was able to get a copy of a magazine cover disk and managed to upgrade that, which saved a few pounds.

Colin

[Odos]

Further to my post above I had a little spare time and did a search. If anyones interested this may throw a little more light on things 
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/aa366796(VS.85).aspx

[Rik]

Thanks, Tony. 

[JB]

Post deleted by 6JB

[Rik]

Did you mean to post in this thread, JB, or in the vulnerability one? Ah, you just answered my question.

[JB]

You're too quick Rik 

[Rik]

 

I have to be.