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Old December 22nd 10, 08:54 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware,microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,microsoft.public.windowsxp,microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain,microsoft.public.windowsxp.setup
Ant[_3_]
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Default Using my extra RAM for other things in an old, updated 32-bitXP Pro. SP3.

On 12/22/2010 11:48 AM PT, Alias typed:

A couple days ago, I upgraded my old 32-bit Windows XP Pro. SP3 (IE6)
system/computer/system to an Intel i7 with 6 GB of RAM. I know that
32-bit operating systems/OS' cannot see all that RAM due to old
software designs' limitations. Currently, my working Windows only sees about 2.5
GB of physical RAM (shouldn't it be 3 GB though?).

.5 is being used for video.


Oh, that's normal? I thought video cards have and use their own VRAM
without using the motherboard's installed RAM. I have an two years old
ATI Radeon 4870 video with 512 MB of VRAM with the latest ATI/AMD
Catalyst driver (v10.12). So if I have a video card with 1 GB of RAM,
then my RAM goes down to 2 GB? I wonder what it is like for those with 2
GB of RAM with 1 GB of VRAM. Ouch, 1 GB free?


I have a video card with 1GB of dedicated memory and 4 gigs of RAM.
Linux shows 4 gigs of RAM as does XP 32 bit and Win 7 64 bit (I have
three internal hard drives, each with a different OS). I have no idea
why a fairly new card like that would deduct a half a gig of your RAM.
It shouldn't :-)


Interesting.


I heard that I can use the unused memory for other things like a RAM
drive for swap files, %temp%, etc. How do I do that?

You heard wrong.


Hmm, that sucks. SO basically, I am wasting my extra unused RAM.
Crap. RAM was on sale for cheap for a hundred bucks a several weeks ago.


Not really because if you go for 64 bit, it will be available.


I meant with 32-bit XP. I don't know when I will go 64-bit. Like I said,
32-bit XP Pro. SP3 does fine for me. I might not even switch until MS
and other companies drop XP SP3 support in 2014. We still have over
three years left. I think by then, I will have an even faster box with
more RAM since I tend to upgrade every two or more years. Haha.


And yes, I will get 64-bit W7 or another OS one day. At this time, I am
not going to do that since XP Pro. SP3 does fine for what I need.

If you want to use all your RAM, you will need a 64 bit OS, be it XP,
Win 7.


Or Vista, Linux, or whatever 64-bit OS.


Exactly. That said, if you don't do any video editing, you probably have
more RAM available than you need.


I do media center stuff with two HDTV tuner cards, play Flash and
computer games, etc. but that's nothing memory hungry I guess. Damn, I
was hoping to use the extra unused RAM for caches or something temporary
storage for speeds like SSD.
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