Originally Posted by DougEdey 64 bit doesn't suffer from that issue does it? There's far more memory addresses so it'll be fine right?
Yes... under 32 bit OSs, you machine can address 2^32 (4GB) individual memory locations of any kind (RAM/GPU/etc) so the more 'etc's you have the less of your 4GB RAM you can address.
Under 64-bit, you have 2^64 (18 exabytes) memory addresses, so using your 4GB RAM leaves 18EB - 4GB = er... well, a lot of free memory addresses.
Originally Posted by DougEdey 64 bit doesn't suffer from that issue does it? There's far more memory addresses so it'll be fine right?
Yes... under 32 bit OSs, you machine can address 2^32 (4GB) individual memory locations of any kind (RAM/GPU/etc) so the more 'etc's you have the less of your 4GB RAM you can address.
Under 64-bit, you have 2^64 (18 exabytes) memory addresses, so using your 4GB RAM leaves 18EB - 4GB = er... well, a lot of free memory addresses.
Very true, please programmers, please, just get to work on 64 bit, it will be worth it in the end, I hate having all of the possative things that come with 64 bit but the compatibility software wise sucks at the moment.
Originally Posted by ParaHelix.org Very true, please programmers, please, just get to work on 64 bit, it will be worth it in the end, I hate having all of the possative things that come with 64 bit but the compatibility software wise sucks at the moment.
All it needs is just one major Application publisher to release a major update that uses 64-bit to its maximum ability and the benchmarks show the results that it is definately worth the upgrade and people will follow and upgrade to 64-bit.
Hopefully now that Adobe have confirmed that Adobe Photoshop CS4 will be 64-bit and they have said that it will run 10-15% faster than 32-bit then this should start the ball rolling for other developer companies to start developing in 64-bit as this is all healthy competition.
Those that do have 64-bit will see the results instantly and the ones without will be left behind and will then be in a situation of needing to upgrade. Especially when you just spent £1200 on a piece of software, that to upgrade to 64-bit for only £55 to get an extra 15% performance is definitely a steal and worth the money.
I think with some processors more than 4GB of RAM could be a bottleneck. The memory provides so much to the processor to process that it simply can't keep up so I wouldn't just upgrade to 8GB RAM on whim.
Originally Posted by jawad I think with some processors more than 4GB of RAM could be a bottleneck. The memory provides so much to the processor to process that it simply can't keep up so I wouldn't just upgrade to 8GB RAM on whim.
the memory will not require processing by the processor unless there is actually something in it.
Just to backtrack a little (and glossing over the thinly veiled advertising by supremelaw...), I've got 8Gig and mainly run Fedora 9, but when I boot into XP, can I use the remaining 4.5Gig as the page file instead of using the hard drive? If so, how do I do it without buying some software?
i can't get it to work in 64bit Vista, but hopefully 32bit will have more luck :)
Unlikely to help Shielder though - if you're running a 32 bit platform, you physically can't address memory over 4GB (and for the reasons stated in the article (I think, haven't re-read it!) you'll only typically be able to access 3.25-3.5GB from XP/Vista 32-bit), and the same goes for any programs running on a 32-bit OS, so the RAM disk you link won't be able to utilise the 'wasted' 4.5 GB unfortunately.
Originally Posted by wuyanxu well then use RamDisk form SuperSpeed. they offer allocation from outside Windows address space. eg. my 8GB becomes 6GB RAM wtih 2GB RAMdisk.
but it's not free
Then you must be running a 64-bit OS. According to SuperSpeed's website (http://www.superspeed.com/desktop/ramdisk.php - scroll down to System Requirements) the maximum sized RAM disk on Windows XP 32 bit is approx 3GB, which comes out of the 4GB maximum system RAM (i.e. if you had a 3GB RAM disk, you'd only have <1GB of system memory). ANY process running on 32 bit Windows XP or Vista can ONLY access the 4GB of RAM that can be 'seen' by Windows. Therefore, there is no RAM disk for 32 bit Windows that can enable you to use RAM above 4GB.
In principle, I suppose you could mount a RAM drive in a 64 bit OS outside Windows, so you could run a 32 bit Windows system as a guest OS in a virtual machine (e.g. VMWare) running on a 64 bit OS (e.g. Fedora). If the host system had say 8GB of RAM seen by Fedora, you could offer, say, 2GB to the guest Windows and mount a 4GB RAM drive in Fedora and allow the guest Windows to see that as a hard drive.
Hmmm. Not terribly helpful for those of us running Vista 32-bit OS which given the lack of supported software and hardware for 64-bit Vista until recently is probably the majority of those who have upgraded recently and wanted to 'future proof' (ha ha) by choosing an DX10 capable OS? I've got 2GB of RAM and reading the article and threads I can see I'm using another 1GB to address the memory of my graphics cards. I assume that upgrading either by adding two more 1GB sticks or replacing my current RAM with 2x2GB sticks would be of marginal benefit at best. Given that the advice always seems to be to install RAM in matched pairs I doubt adding a single additional 1GB stick to bring my total memory including graphics cards up to 4GB would be a great idea either?
Lack of hardware and software support for Vista 64? Not true anymore, unless you're running stuff that's very, very old. In a survey recently in this forum it was a 50-50 split between 32 and 64bit Vista with people saying they will move to 64bit in the next few/6 months.
Even if you do upgrade from 2gb to 4gb on a 32-bit PC, you'll still see 3.5gb (assuming you have a 512MB graphics card and no readyboost) which is closer to 4gb than 2gb and will show a performance boost.
As I've said previously, I've been running Vista x64 for nearly 2 years and there was never much of an issue from the start. The problem I had was with all the neat little tools like Speedfan, CPUz and CoreTemp (which has only recently been made compatible). Don't believe the hype.
Agreed that it now seems clear that this is pretty much a non-issue but when I bought my PC the consensus seemed to be - right or wrong - was that it was a significant problem. As so often with MS I guess there is no point complaining that the company seems keen to punish early adopters for their foolishness. Can't say I like the idea of paying >£100 for a new OS to make it worthwhile upgrading my RAM.
Hey, first post on bit-tech, glad to be here, great site:)
This test should be re-done I think not that 4GB modules are available (from OCZ) at least. I am currently using 2 of these for 8GB memorty. Once the test is done, it will be quite obvious that its not the amount of ram that is the problem, its the dual channel configuration of the chipsets. As soon as four DIMMs are installed, the channels become clogged, even though dual-channel is active. Quad-channel is just around the corner (for mainstream), but not there yet.
Here are some of my results from Everest Ultimate 4.50.1330
Comments 76 to 98 of 98
Yes... under 32 bit OSs, you machine can address 2^32 (4GB) individual memory locations of any kind (RAM/GPU/etc) so the more 'etc's you have the less of your 4GB RAM you can address.
Under 64-bit, you have 2^64 (18 exabytes) memory addresses, so using your 4GB RAM leaves 18EB - 4GB = er... well, a lot of free memory addresses.
http://www.overclock.net/hardware-news/356643-tom-s-hd-4870x2-r700-launch.html
This new card have 2GB !!!!! This means you will end from 4GB to 2GB. This going to sux. !!!!
it's not like they are hugely different.
that 2GB Spartan looks great, 10GB just for memory :)
I never got that impression either, maybe you just need to read it over again.
Very true, please programmers, please, just get to work on 64 bit, it will be worth it in the end, I hate having all of the possative things that come with 64 bit but the compatibility software wise sucks at the moment.
All it needs is just one major Application publisher to release a major update that uses 64-bit to its maximum ability and the benchmarks show the results that it is definately worth the upgrade and people will follow and upgrade to 64-bit.
Hopefully now that Adobe have confirmed that Adobe Photoshop CS4 will be 64-bit and they have said that it will run 10-15% faster than 32-bit then this should start the ball rolling for other developer companies to start developing in 64-bit as this is all healthy competition.
Those that do have 64-bit will see the results instantly and the ones without will be left behind and will then be in a situation of needing to upgrade. Especially when you just spent £1200 on a piece of software, that to upgrade to 64-bit for only £55 to get an extra 15% performance is definitely a steal and worth the money.
Thanks
Andy
http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/05/27/free-ramdisk-for-windows-vista-xp-2000-and-2003-server/
i can't get it to work in 64bit Vista, but hopefully 32bit will have more luck :)
Unlikely to help Shielder though - if you're running a 32 bit platform, you physically can't address memory over 4GB (and for the reasons stated in the article (I think, haven't re-read it!) you'll only typically be able to access 3.25-3.5GB from XP/Vista 32-bit), and the same goes for any programs running on a 32-bit OS, so the RAM disk you link won't be able to utilise the 'wasted' 4.5 GB unfortunately.
but it's not free
In principle, I suppose you could mount a RAM drive in a 64 bit OS outside Windows, so you could run a 32 bit Windows system as a guest OS in a virtual machine (e.g. VMWare) running on a 64 bit OS (e.g. Fedora). If the host system had say 8GB of RAM seen by Fedora, you could offer, say, 2GB to the guest Windows and mount a 4GB RAM drive in Fedora and allow the guest Windows to see that as a hard drive.
Even if you do upgrade from 2gb to 4gb on a 32-bit PC, you'll still see 3.5gb (assuming you have a 512MB graphics card and no readyboost) which is closer to 4gb than 2gb and will show a performance boost.
This test should be re-done I think not that 4GB modules are available (from OCZ) at least. I am currently using 2 of these for 8GB memorty. Once the test is done, it will be quite obvious that its not the amount of ram that is the problem, its the dual channel configuration of the chipsets. As soon as four DIMMs are installed, the channels become clogged, even though dual-channel is active. Quad-channel is just around the corner (for mainstream), but not there yet.
Here are some of my results from Everest Ultimate 4.50.1330
Memoery Read : 6655 MB/s
Memory Write : 8438 MB/s (No typo there...)
Memory Copy : 7683 MB/s
Memory Latency : 83 ns
System specs:
Q9550 @ 3.4 Ghz
P5Q Pro
OCZ Value 8GB ram (2x4gb) 5-5-5-18
Sapphire HD 3870 DDR4 > (softmod) > FireGL V7700 w/DuOrb
RAID 1 7200.11 500GB
Seasonic S12 650W
Always good to have another opinion.
What are your Everest Scores with 4GB of memory?