Avatar of Justice Posted April 1, 2009 Share Posted April 1, 2009 I just built a new PC with 4GB of RAM. Installed XP, and 32-bit XP can't see all my RAM. It sees 3.25 GB due to my video card's RAM. Now, my primary desktop is going to be a Linux partition, so the only thing my Windows partition is going to do is play games like Bioshock, Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress 2, and Last Remnant. Should I go ahead and put 64-bit Vista on it? I have a friend who can get me a free student copy so cost doesn't matter. It seems like the extra 876 MB of RAM would more than make up for any Vista performance issues. I've heard that XP 64-bit (which I have a student copy of) has issues with a lot of games but that Vista 64-bit does not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted April 1, 2009 Share Posted April 1, 2009 directx 10 gaming is awesome, but you'd need to find out what works and what doesn't. if you can, run 64-bit vista. if you can't, stick with xp. contact the game manufacturers through their tech support and find out what works and what doesn't - that'd be how i'd do it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phill Posted April 1, 2009 Share Posted April 1, 2009 In the grand scheme of things, vista (64-bit or otherwise) isn't really worth it even for free. It would be wiser to stick with WinXP until Win7 is finished and you can pick up a "student" copy of that. The hole in your memory really isn't because of your video card though, its due to how memory mapped IO works with the x86 arch. Same problem occurs on the 64-bit x86 arch, it just happens that where it occurs is out of reach for most...if not all consumers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted April 1, 2009 Share Posted April 1, 2009 In the grand scheme of things, vista (64-bit or otherwise) isn't really worth it even for free. It would be wiser to stick with WinXP until Win7 is finished and you can pick up a "student" copy of that. The hole in your memory really isn't because of your video card though, its due to how memory mapped IO works with the x86 arch. Same problem occurs on the 64-bit x86 arch, it just happens that where it occurs is out of reach for most...if not all consumers. you're overlooking the pretty pictures using dx10 would bring, particularly for gaming. although, phill's right, all told. it's a huge hassle. i talked about the difference between the two systems in my computer how-to thing, linked in my sig. you might want to read it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ronyn Posted April 12, 2009 Share Posted April 12, 2009 Do not go 64 bit! I don't know what Phil is talking about but Windows XP actually does use all 4 gigs. It just reports "available" memory. The rest it is hogging for itself, which is fine really, it needs it. they fixed this in vista 32bit SP1 (it will say 4 gigs, proof it addresses it all just fine), but other than just changing the memory reported to "installed" memory, it's all the same, no performance difference. If your BIOS is reporting 4 gigs, you're just fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted April 12, 2009 Share Posted April 12, 2009 uh, no it doesn't, man. what you just wrote is completely wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phill Posted April 13, 2009 Share Posted April 13, 2009 There is a reason you don't know what I'm talking about, its cause your an idiot. There is no way for standard 32bit x86 hardware(along with several other hardware architectures) to avoid the memory mapped IO hole, its a fact of life built in to the architecture. It is not magically hidden and controlled by the OS, it is gone...ish. It is essentially the address space of the hardware, back in the day when you wanted to change what was displayed to the screen, you would write to the appropriate address range and those changes would be reflected on the screen. A program like MSInfo32 may report that there is 4096mb of physical ram installed, but guess what, it cannot address it for none hardware things, programs can't be put in it, windows can't be put in it, it's a hole. It should be noted that some motherboards offer an option to shift the MMIO hole out of the 4gig range. My mobo has it, doesn't do anything for the 32 bit OS's I have installed at the moment and lacking proper documentation, I'm not actually sure it does anything for the 32-bit OSs. I get the feeling that it only helps the 64 bit OS's but I'm far to lazy to find out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ronyn Posted April 14, 2009 Share Posted April 14, 2009 Hmm, I stand corrected, but thanks for being polite and helpful about it. My sister-in-law was told her whole life growing up that there are two kinds of chickens, one that lays chicks, and one that lays eggs for the store, and was shocked to find out later in life that was not the case. I feel about that stupid right now yeah, lol. My knowledge on the subject was based on some trusted friends and resources, but when I looked into it I couldn't believe I hadn't seen this info before. If you don't mind my asking though, what do you know about XP SP2 and PAE mode? I think that's what I might be misinterpreting. I don't get the support for more physical addressing, yet it seems like turning it on actually hides more memory. All the info I've found is way too jargon-ish. Seems like if there's more bits for addressing, why wouldn't there be plenty of room for the i/o devices and RAM? or is it all still bound by hardware limitations regardless? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted April 14, 2009 Share Posted April 14, 2009 theoretically, it'll give you more ram to use, but xp and vista don't really support it. so it's kinda useless. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phill Posted April 14, 2009 Share Posted April 14, 2009 Hmm, I stand corrected, but thanks for being polite and helpful about it. My sister-in-law was told her whole life growing up that there are two kinds of chickens, one that lays chicks, and one that lays eggs for the store, and was shocked to find out later in life that was not the case. I feel about that stupid right now yeah, lol. My knowledge on the subject was based on some trusted friends and resources, but when I looked into it I couldn't believe I hadn't seen this info before. If you don't mind my asking though, what do you know about XP SP2 and PAE mode? I think that's what I might be misinterpreting. I don't get the support for more physical addressing, yet it seems like turning it on actually hides more memory. All the info I've found is way too jargon-ish. Seems like if there's more bits for addressing, why wouldn't there be plenty of room for the i/o devices and RAM? or is it all still bound by hardware limitations regardless? If I ever come across as a dick, well its because I can be at times...there are a few threads and users that will attest to that. Ah, good ole PAE mode, as Mephisto mentioned, it is pretty much useless. It is something thought up by Intel that Windows is suppose to support but as far as I've seen, for the consumer end of things at least, it doesn't work. It is similar to the BIOS option I mentioned, but instead of moving the MMIO hole, PAE, I think, just gives access to a larger address space including addresses outside the 4GB range. The large MMIO is a product of the "who the hell needs 4GB of memory" era. With only 2^32-1 addresses for memory AND hardware, a region in that address space needed to be mapped to hardware devices. So, 750ish million address where picked to handle them and any time there is a conflict between memory and hardware, hardware wins. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ronyn Posted April 14, 2009 Share Posted April 14, 2009 No big deal, I was practically asking for it sounding so matter-of-fact, which isn't quite what I intended to sound like but yeah my own dumb fault. That PAE thing makes sense though. The IT support I do is more tied to retail, and I'll bet they use that PAE info as a marketing excuse to misinform schmucks like me that "sure XP can handle up to 4 gigs of RAM, go ahead and buy all you can!" I've actually heard what I said above from a Microsoft and Cisco certified tech I trust. Good to be straightened out actually, cuz now I can think of a few good things to try on my own system, I'm always running out of memory. thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted April 14, 2009 Share Posted April 14, 2009 if you want, i discuss this in my computer faq that's linked in my signature. it's still in 'beta' phase, since i haven't proofread it yet, but it should discuss a little about what you're talking about. edit: never trust cisco techs. i had one tell me a while ago he stuck a sun sparc processor - think thousands of dollars, 16 cores with multithreading - in a desktop and it was good and all. something in me doubts that highly, considering that you can't buy them piecemeal and the servers they come in cost like $7k. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dyne Posted April 14, 2009 Share Posted April 14, 2009 Doesn't XP 64 see at least 4GB of RAM or more? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 it'll see up to 127.5 or so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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