VM and stuff

humaxf1

Hi all,

I've started to mess around with VM in my spare time. At the moment, my PC is running XP with 2GB RAM. When I allocate "X" amount of RAM for the VM, naturally, XP gets the rest.

Lets say my motherboard supports 8GB (I'm aware that 32bit XP can only see 3GB). Can the VM utilise the unused remaining 5GB?

If not, what would be an ideal machine setup with plenty of RAM in reserve to run VM(s) so that the installed OS doesn't suffer? Would I need to go 64bit?

TIA

snappieT

humaxf1 wrote: »

Lets say my motherboard supports 8GB (I'm aware that 32bit XP can only see 3GB). Can the VM utilise the unused remaining 5GB?

Nope, that limitation is based on the ability of the hardware to address your components. You're still restricted to 4GB, including addressing your graphics card, RAM, and other stuff.

If not, what would be an ideal machine setup with plenty of RAM in reserve to run VM(s) so that the installed OS doesn't suffer? Would I need to go 64bit?

64bit will let you have more RAM, yes, but what do you intend to run in your VM? I have a text-mode ubuntu running, it only needs 64MB, leaving the rest for my host OS.

humaxf1

In the VM, I'd be running XP, Vista, some form of linux - prob Ubuntu and possibly Windows 7 if it will load.

It's purely for messing around. If I was to get a 64bit board for the extra RAM (say 8GB), will 32bit XP load as the HDD installed OS and the VM see/utilise the remainder of the RAM.

TBH, I dont have any experience of 64bit HW or OS.

Gadgetman496

I have a Dual Core XP Pro 32Bit machine as my main OS with 4GB RAM installed.

I have VM Workstation installed & have XP Pro, Vista Ultimate, Windows 7 & Kubuntu installed in VM with 1GB of RAM allocated to the 3 Windows OS's & 512 for Kubuntu. I mostly have only one of the VM machines running along side my main OS at any giving time & have no problems. If I run 2 or 3 VM's I can see the lag though.

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