Ram question

king_of_inismac

Hey Guys,

I've written a computer program thats VERY memory intensive. I've optimised it as much as I can but it is still running out of memory. (This can be avoided, its just the nature of the program)


I currently have 1.5gbs of ram, and I'm thinking of upgrading to 4Gbs. I've read online that this is supported by windows XP, but someone else told me that although windows supports it, it won't utilise it.is this true?

Also, can anyone recommend a good place to buy this Ram. There are four slots on my motherboard, and I'm running a P4 3.4Ghz dell precision

themole

there is a limit in windows as to how much memory a program can use.

this is regardless of how much ram you actually have.

I honestly can't remember where i can across this before and i can't remember if the limit can be changed.

try googling xp memory management

Sam Vimes

if i recall correctly each program is theoretically limited to 4gb ram. thats what i was told in college anyway. might have changed since then

awhir

you cant put 4gb of ram into windows because it will be a tiny bit over and not use 1 stick i think.

Mutant_Fruit

What i wonder is what kind of program needs more than 1.5gb of ram to run. Does everything have to be stored in memory?

netman

Windows can use 4GB of RAM. The problem arises if you want to use more than 4GB, but it's not really a Windows issue, it's a 32-bit computing issue. (ie. 2^32 = 4.2 billion)

As long as your motherboard supports it (ie. 4x1GB modules) you will be ok.

Now you might hit a problem depending on how your application is written.
32-bit windows with 4GB of RAM will normally allow 4GB of "virtual" memory to all applications, which really consists of 2GB of kernel memory and 2GB of application memory.

If the kernel usage goes over 2GB you'll hit a problem.

Normally this isn't an issue, unless you're running for example Terminal Services with more than 200 users, where the windows kernel might outgrow the 2GB space.

123

You could always use win x64

conzy

But Windows XPx64 has a limit of 16 exobytes of RAM, It might not be enough for his RAM hungry Program:D