Windows RAM limitations

[Carolyn]

I am in the process of purchasing a new computer and want lots of DDR RAM
(perhaps up to 1Gb) to deal with the memory intensive purposes I will be
using it for. I would preferably like to run Windows 2000 (or if not, XP).
However, I have been told that all versions of Windows, although they
recognise RAM above 512Mb, they do not utilise it, and I would therefore be
wasting my money. Is this true?

[Tom Lake]

"Carolyn" > wrote in message
...
> I am in the process of purchasing a new computer and want lots of DDR RAM
> (perhaps up to 1Gb) to deal with the memory intensive purposes I will be
> using it for. I would preferably like to run Windows 2000 (or if not,
XP).
> However, I have been told that all versions of Windows, although they
> recognise RAM above 512Mb, they do not utilise it, and I would therefore
be
> wasting my money. Is this true?

No. Not true at all. XP can use up to 4GB total (2GB per process) and
frequently uses otherwise free RAM for buffers and other internal uses that
speed up things considerably. Buy as much RAM as you can afford or as much
as your motherboard can hold whichever is lower! ;-)

Tom Lake

[***** dave]

Carolyn > wrote in message
...
> I am in the process of purchasing a new computer and want lots of DDR RAM
> (perhaps up to 1Gb) to deal with the memory intensive purposes I will be
> using it for. I would preferably like to run Windows 2000 (or if not,
XP).
> However, I have been told that all versions of Windows, although they
> recognise RAM above 512Mb, they do not utilise it, and I would therefore
be
> wasting my money. Is this true?

No. The following is a list of generally accepted limits of each Windows OS
due to the limits of the memory manager that comes with the OS. You can
put more in the machine but it was not designed to work with it at it's most
efficient manner. Tweaking is possible for 98 for ram sizes bigger than
512M.
If these are technically incorrect, please list documentation for your
belief.

Windows 3.11 WFW don't remember, actually it was DOS 6.22.
expanded memory, extended memory blah
blah blah
the famous 640K in the first meg of ram
Windows 95a 64M
Windows 95 OSR2 64M
Windows 95 2.1 64M
Windows 95 2.5 64M
Windows 98FE 512M
Windows 98SE 512M
Windows 98ME 512M
Windows NT4 4G ?
Windows 2000Pro 4G
Windows XPPro/Home 4G
Windows 64bit version I think is 64G of ram.

If you are interested in an Opteron, the address bus is limited to 40 bits
that's 1 Terabyte of ram.
If you are interested in an Itanium, the address bus is limited to 50 bits
that's one hell of a big number.

The operating systems for the above two cpu's may have another limit.

later,
dave......

[Ron Martell]

"***** dave" > wrote:

>
>No. The following is a list of generally accepted limits of each Windows OS
>due to the limits of the memory manager that comes with the OS. You can
>put more in the machine but it was not designed to work with it at it's most
>efficient manner. Tweaking is possible for 98 for ram sizes bigger than
>512M.
>If these are technically incorrect, please list documentation for your
>belief.
>
>Windows 3.11 WFW don't remember, actually it was DOS 6.22.
> expanded memory, extended memory blah
>blah blah
> the famous 640K in the first meg of ram
>Windows 95a 64M
Balderdash
>Windows 95 OSR2 64M
Hogwash
>Windows 95 2.1 64M
Malarkey
>Windows 95 2.5 64M
Baloney
>Windows 98FE 512M
More Balderdash
>Windows 98SE 512M
More Hogwash
>Windows 98ME 512M
More Malarkey

Computer May Reboot Continuously with More Than 1.5 GB of RAM
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - 304943
http://support.microsoft.com?kbid=304943


"Out of Memory" Error Messages with Large Amounts of RAM Installed
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - 253912
http://support.microsoft.com?kbid=253912

Error Message: Insufficient Memory to Initialize Windows
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - 184447
http://support.microsoft.com?kbid=184447



Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."