On 12/22/2010 08:54 PM, Ant wrote:
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.
So try out Linux Mint, 64 Bit. It's free and you can dual boot with XP.
It's pretty similar to XP but you will find it will make all your RAM
available, your Internet will be faster and no viruses or malware. Check
it out at
http://www.linuxmint.com/ If you do it, download the DVD so
that Flash, Java, codecs, fonts, etc. get installed along with the OS.
When you start the install, it will detect XP and ask you if you want to
install Linux Mint side-by-side. It's pretty simple after that.
--
Alias