XP ram limitations - considerations for upgrade to 4GB?

Got a shopping cart of parts that you want opinions on? Get advice from members on your planned or existing system (or upgrade).

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee

Post Reply
Morten74
Posts: 80
Joined: Thu Jun 07, 2007 11:56 pm
Location: Denmark

XP ram limitations - considerations for upgrade to 4GB?

Post by Morten74 » Tue Sep 11, 2007 2:51 pm

Hi guys

I couldn't find anything on this using the search function, but sorry if it has already been discussed (also, it's not quite 'silent related' in other ways than that my PC is silent :lol: ).

I currently have 2GB ram (2x1GB Corsair PC5400), but as I play a fair bit of Gothic 3, I think I could use as much ram as I can stuff in there. I know that XP has a limitation of 3GB, but my question is whether it would cause problems to throw in another set of 2x1GB Corsairs? The reason being, that the price difference compared to 2x512MB is less than 30 euro/ 40$, and with 4GB I would be sort of 'ready for Vista' [yearh right :roll: ].

But anyways, will there be any slow downs or other problems with putting 4x1GB in an XP machine?

Thanks in advance

Best regards
Morten

-and yes, I know a faster GPU would be of more help in Gothic 3, but I really like my silent 8600GT 8)

bonestonne
Posts: 1839
Joined: Mon Feb 05, 2007 2:10 pm
Location: Northern New Jersey
Contact:

Post by bonestonne » Tue Sep 11, 2007 3:19 pm

XP itself is not limited to 3GB of RAM, 32bit operating systems are limited to ~3gb of RAM.

if you run a 64 bit operating system, you'll be able to utilize past 4gb of RAM no problems. of course there are problems such as incompatibilities and such that will come with a 64 bit operating system.

most programs are not coded for 64 bit, so some may not run, while others may install perfectly, but be completely instable. it depends on how much you're willing to push for everything to work.

in adding 4x1GB RAM, just make sure that you're using either your boards standard speed, or know that it may not run full speed. IE, a system with a 667mhz memory standard will run DDR2-800 @ 667mhz, not 800mhz. other than that, theres nothing to worry about except the brand...Corsair? Kingston? i use G-Skill with no complaints.

as for Vista, i wouldn't reccomend it to anyone ever...i have it, i hate it, i put it in the basement. maybe in a few years it'll be worth installing.

merlin
Friend of SPCR
Posts: 717
Joined: Mon Jun 13, 2005 6:48 am
Location: San Francisco, CA

Post by merlin » Tue Sep 11, 2007 4:24 pm

I currently run a 4X1GB ballistix setup due to not planning for 2X2GB originally. This definitely doesn't allow for great memory overclocking, but beyond that it should be fine on any decent board. It's certainly more likely to run into random memory compatability issues with 4X1 than 2X1. XP will usually allow somewhere between 3.25 to 3.5GB of ram to be visible, which means you're losing very little. And no there should be no other issues.

Max Slowik
Posts: 524
Joined: Sun Oct 22, 2006 7:39 pm
Location: Denver, Colorado USA
Contact:

Post by Max Slowik » Tue Sep 11, 2007 8:42 pm

Vista runs FINE on two gigs, you won't notice any difference making the shift from XP. Remember that Vista uses the memory to cache system data (like *nix) which is where the idea that Vista hogs RAM seems to stem from. It's just a cache, which if anything, will improve things.

Torajirou
Posts: 162
Joined: Wed Sep 05, 2007 6:16 am
Location: Belgium

Post by Torajirou » Wed Sep 12, 2007 6:56 am

Also, be aware that your motherboard might require that you activate the "Memory remap / Memory hole" function in the BIOS in order to be able to use more than 3GB (happened to me with an Asus A8N32SLI-Deluxe).

Jeff Cutsinger
Posts: 48
Joined: Wed May 23, 2007 9:48 am
Contact:

Post by Jeff Cutsinger » Wed Sep 12, 2007 7:05 am

bonestonne wrote: if you run a 64 bit operating system, you'll be able to utilize past 4gb of RAM no problems. of course there are problems such as incompatibilities and such that will come with a 64 bit operating system.

most programs are not coded for 64 bit, so some may not run, while others may install perfectly, but be completely instable. it depends on how much you're willing to push for everything to work.
I use XP-64 here at work (on a quad proc machine with 8 gigs of ram) and I have experienced no problems. The only thing that I could imagine being a problem is drivers.

bonestonne
Posts: 1839
Joined: Mon Feb 05, 2007 2:10 pm
Location: Northern New Jersey
Contact:

Post by bonestonne » Wed Sep 12, 2007 7:14 pm

well, its dependant on the program, many are flawless, but some have their issues, and can't simply be discredited.

largely only drivers need to be worried about

Morten74
Posts: 80
Joined: Thu Jun 07, 2007 11:56 pm
Location: Denmark

Post by Morten74 » Thu Sep 13, 2007 12:11 am

Thanks guys! -2 new sticks ordered :D

-A follow up question; should I change the settings of the pagefile? I think I read somewhere to set it to a fixed size og 1.5 times the installed ram (i.e. 6GB in my case) ?

Thanks in advance

Best regards

Morten

Matija
Posts: 780
Joined: Sat Mar 17, 2007 3:17 am
Location: Croatia

Post by Matija » Thu Sep 13, 2007 12:45 am

The 1.5x recommendation is something I never understood, as it makes no sense. You do need a swap file, but you don't need it to be big. On my old PC with 512 MB of memory, I had a swap file of the same size and never encountered problems (then again, I haven't edited 34987x59854px pictures in Photoshop or something). Right now, I have 2 GB of memory, and again a swap file of 512 MB.

You can't go wrong with a swap file that is "too large", but on the other hand, it's silly to waste much disk space. If in doubt, set it to 2 GB and forget all about it.

whiic
Posts: 575
Joined: Wed Sep 06, 2006 11:48 pm
Location: Finland

Post by whiic » Thu Sep 13, 2007 4:32 am

There was a discussion on StorageReview about that but I can't seem to find it using search. So I'll contribute by giving the following links for reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Extension
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=291988

Ah... finally found that one from SR:
http://forums.storagereview.net/index.p ... opic=25819
(warning! It's not too easy to read all those contradicting opinions on that thread, but it's understandable that a difficult matter will create differing views)

bonestonne
Posts: 1839
Joined: Mon Feb 05, 2007 2:10 pm
Location: Northern New Jersey
Contact:

Post by bonestonne » Thu Sep 13, 2007 6:18 am

i tweaked one of my older computers, i ran windows in the RAM [registry hack] and disabled the pagefile. worked faster, but couldn't be left on overnight...it had to be turned off every 16-23 hours or the system would become completely unresponsive...apps wouldn't load, system would lag.

although it was a good hack for those short spurts of using the computer for editing.

protellect
Posts: 312
Joined: Tue Jul 24, 2007 3:57 pm
Location: Minnesota

Post by protellect » Thu Sep 13, 2007 7:48 am

bonestonne wrote:i tweaked one of my older computers, i ran windows in the RAM [registry hack] and disabled the pagefile. worked faster, but couldn't be left on overnight...it had to be turned off every 16-23 hours or the system would become completely unresponsive...apps wouldn't load, system would lag.

although it was a good hack for those short spurts of using the computer for editing.
edit; i read too fast.! i get it now.
Last edited by protellect on Wed Sep 19, 2007 7:28 am, edited 1 time in total.

bonestonne
Posts: 1839
Joined: Mon Feb 05, 2007 2:10 pm
Location: Northern New Jersey
Contact:

Post by bonestonne » Thu Sep 13, 2007 10:35 am

it wasn't the pagefile that caused it, it was running windows in RAM. RAM is only able to hold data for ~23hours...thats why not too many people go for I-RAM yet.

if i had more than 1gb of RAM i'd disable my pagefile, but in editing it can become handy.

Drexl
Posts: 26
Joined: Sat Aug 11, 2007 9:01 pm

Post by Drexl » Thu Sep 13, 2007 11:07 am

Here's a really good article on the issue: http://www.dansdata.com/askdan00015.htm

I'm still a bit confused though, as I haven't seen anything in the BIOS of my GA-P35-DS3P board about memory remapping. I'm using Vista 64-bit, which shows 4093 MB of memory in Task Manager. I suppose that means I'm using it, but I'm not totally sure.

Nick Geraedts
SPCR Reviewer
Posts: 561
Joined: Tue May 30, 2006 8:22 pm
Location: Vancouver, BC

Post by Nick Geraedts » Thu Sep 13, 2007 2:40 pm

bonestonne wrote:XP itself is not limited to 3GB of RAM, 32bit operating systems are limited to ~3gb of RAM.
Not entirely true. If you want the full story, read this article - Memory Management - Dude where's my RAM?

The simple answer - it's hardware dependant. Even with a 64-bit OS, if the hardware you're using can't properly address the 4GB of devices you have in your system, then you're never going to use it.

Morten74
Posts: 80
Joined: Thu Jun 07, 2007 11:56 pm
Location: Denmark

Post by Morten74 » Wed Sep 19, 2007 2:23 am

Thanks for all your input. After reading through all the linked articles, I decided to 'play it safe' and go for 2x512MB. After installing, CPU-Z shows 3GB dual channel and Windows Control panel shows 2,93GB, which isn't too bad. I haven't really noticed any performance changes in games, but subjectively, Windows loads faster (I think).

I don't really know how to meassure the performance change. You might argue that it wasn't the most cost-effective upgrade, but what the heck 8)

:wink: Morten

murtoz
Posts: 122
Joined: Tue Mar 13, 2007 12:24 pm
Location: Wiltshire, UK

Post by murtoz » Wed Sep 19, 2007 7:20 am

Nick Geraedts wrote:[The simple answer - it's hardware dependant. Even with a 64-bit OS, if the hardware you're using can't properly address the 4GB of devices you have in your system, then you're never going to use it.
The only thing there is that to be able to install a 64-bit OS, the hardware must support it, which will automatically mean it supports >4GB of memory!

By the way, the 4GB limit with 32bit XP and Vista is artificial. Using Physical Addressing Extensions (linked a couple of posts up), any 32bit windows server OS apart from standard edition can all support >4GB, with the maximum supported memory being 128GB for datacentre. I'd presume linux supports PAE as well.

johnniecache7
Posts: 332
Joined: Wed Jan 17, 2007 8:10 pm
Location: Toronto - Ontario - Canada

Post by johnniecache7 » Wed Sep 19, 2007 8:31 am

Beware when using 4GB memory that creative sound card drivers current verison do not work with this much memory. People have it working for them it hit and miss. For reference check the creative forums.

mttcrlsn
Posts: 49
Joined: Sat Jun 23, 2007 11:22 am
Location: La Crosse, WI
Contact:

Post by mttcrlsn » Wed Sep 19, 2007 1:26 pm

Running with 4GB (4 CORSAIR 1GB CAS 4) on Vista 32-bit and have a Creative X-Fi. No issues here. [Ran Vista 64-bit for a few months but Adobe Premiere does not like it]

johnniecache7
Posts: 332
Joined: Wed Jan 17, 2007 8:10 pm
Location: Toronto - Ontario - Canada

Post by johnniecache7 » Wed Sep 19, 2007 2:24 pm

Creative issue is with X64 OS and 4GB memory only. X86 OS does not show more then 3-3.5 GB of the ram.

mttcrlsn
Posts: 49
Joined: Sat Jun 23, 2007 11:22 am
Location: La Crosse, WI
Contact:

Post by mttcrlsn » Wed Sep 19, 2007 9:24 pm

Not sure what the Creative issue is with x64 but like I said I ran it from November of las year till August 28 and had no issues. Only reason I am not using now is Adobe does not like x64. One thing I did was to get the Vista CD from Creative - this has more than the download so maybe that is what make the difference.

aburgard
Posts: 32
Joined: Fri Mar 31, 2006 5:30 pm

Post by aburgard » Thu Sep 20, 2007 6:47 am

Vista can use fast flash drives for the page file. Why not just insert a flash drive in XP and assign the page file to it? That'd help with all that extra seek noise at least.

Post Reply