Chekhonte Posted July 18, 2008 Report Share Posted July 18, 2008 I'm thinking of buying a new laptop with 4 gb of RAM installed. It comes with windows vista but I'm planning on installing XP pro 32bit edition. I've read that XP has trouble with more than 3 GB of ram. Will I encounter a problem with this if I decide to do it? Here's a link to the computer if it will answer any questions. Gateway - Laptop with Intel® Centrino® Processor Technology - Pacific Blue - T-6836 Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DigiPete Posted July 18, 2008 Report Share Posted July 18, 2008 My understanding is that neither xp or vista 32 can use 4gb of ram. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n_maher Posted July 18, 2008 Report Share Posted July 18, 2008 32 bit operating systems by definition (limited number of addresses) can't see more than 3gb of RAM. That's not to say having 4 will hurt, only that the last one won't help and that you'll also lose addresses to stuff like video memory (even if it's on the card). Google and you'll find plenty of much more clearly thought out answers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slwiser Posted July 18, 2008 Report Share Posted July 18, 2008 The standard XP operating system will see 4 GB of address space. If you have 4 GB of memory that will take up 4 GB of address space BUT..the operating system uses some space. The video uses some space. Other things use address space. That these things other than memory uses address space from the top of the 4GB down. Memory is given from the bottom up. Where these meet is how much memory is available to you. If your other things take up 0.75 GB of address off the top, all the memory that will be seen is 3.25 GB because that is all of address space available. Now there are extensions available in XP that allow address space of 12 GB and of course the 64 bit version which allows the operating system to see 64 GB of address space. That is the sum of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chekhonte Posted July 18, 2008 Author Report Share Posted July 18, 2008 I can probably get a copy of xp 64 bit edition for free (live so close to microsoft headquarters has it's perks), would I have a problem with installing the 64 bit edition on the system I want to get? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chekhonte Posted July 18, 2008 Author Report Share Posted July 18, 2008 actually i just read on cnet that it comes with the 64 bit version of vista so I suppose that xp 64 would be fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ingwe Posted July 18, 2008 Report Share Posted July 18, 2008 32 bit operating systems by definition (limited number of addresses) can't see more than 3gb of RAM. That's not to say having 4 will hurt, only that the last one won't help and that you'll also lose addresses to stuff like video memory (even if it's on the card). Google and you'll find plenty of much more clearly thought out answers. Actually 32 bit corresponds to 2^32 which provides a 4Gig address space, but no more. The standard XP operating system will see 4 GB of address space. If you have 4 GB of memory that will take up 4 GB of address space BUT..the operating system uses some space. The video uses some space. Other things use address space. That these things other than memory uses address space from the top of the 4GB down. Memory is given from the bottom up. Where these meet is how much memory is available to you. If your other things take up 0.75 GB of address off the top, all the memory that will be seen is 3.25 GB because that is all of address space available. Now there are extensions available in XP that allow address space of 12 GB and of course the 64 bit version which allows the operating system to see 64 GB of address space. That is the sum of it. Exactly so. A decent explanation can be found at Coding Horror: Dude, Where's My 4 Gigabytes of RAM? I found a diagram there that should make everything clear as mud: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chekhonte Posted July 18, 2008 Author Report Share Posted July 18, 2008 thanks for that link, it was very informative. A lot of it went over my head but enough of it stuck to answer my question. Again, thanks all of you for your help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n_maher Posted July 18, 2008 Report Share Posted July 18, 2008 Actually 32 bit corresponds to 2^32 which provides a 4Gig address space, but no more. Right, but what I was saying was that out of that 4gig of address space you rarely end up with more than 3gigs of available system memory (RAM). Clearly my explanation was lacking, but the essence is true - installing 4gigs of RAM will not give you 4gigs of usable RAM. Based on the way the OP phrased the question I figured implementing the KISS principle was probably best. All that said, you're 100% right in your explanation from what I can tell. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ingwe Posted July 18, 2008 Report Share Posted July 18, 2008 Right, but what I was saying was that out of that 4gig of address space you rarely end up with more than 3gigs of available system memory (RAM). Clearly my explanation was lacking, but the essence is true - installing 4gigs of RAM will not give you 4gigs of usable RAM. Based on the way the OP phrased the question I figured implementing the KISS principle was probably best. All that said, you're 100% right in your explanation from what I can tell. The article brought up something I had hoped I'd sufficiently repressed: We could be back in 16-bit land, where the world ended at 64 kilobytes. Brr. I'm getting the shakes just thinking about segments, and pointers of the near and far variety. Let us never speak of this again. Near, far, huge pointers...segments... thank god I don't deal with that anymore. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guzziguy Posted July 18, 2008 Report Share Posted July 18, 2008 The article brought up something I had hoped I'd sufficiently repressed: Near, far, huge pointers...segments... thank god I don't deal with that anymore. Absolutely the silliest and stupidest processor architecture ever considered, much less implemented. Motorola really screwed up not to have one the processor wars. Their architecture was so superior. I guess that they couldn't do the deals with IBM/Microsoft. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ingwe Posted July 18, 2008 Report Share Posted July 18, 2008 ^^^ That's at least two subjects for us to talk about in a couple weeks: Software development horrors and Parrots! (I don't have one, but have been considering for quite a while.) And, :palm: pretty much sums-up anything Motorola-related. Okay, topic number three. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nenso Posted July 18, 2008 Report Share Posted July 18, 2008 I'm thinking of buying a new laptop with 4 gb of RAM installed. It comes with windows vista but I'm planning on installing XP pro 32bit edition. I've read that XP has trouble with more than 3 GB of ram. Will I encounter a problem with this if I decide to do it? Here's a link to the computer if it will answer any questions. [url=http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8892861&st=gateway+laptop&lp=5&type=product&cp=1&id=1211587728253]Gateway - Laptop with Intel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guzziguy Posted July 18, 2008 Report Share Posted July 18, 2008 ^^^ That's at least two subjects for us to talk about in a couple weeks: Software development horrors and Parrots! (I don't have one, but have been considering for quite a while.) And, :palm: pretty much sums-up anything Motorola-related. Okay, topic number three. Looking forward to it. I agree about Motorola. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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