Jim added these comments in the current discussion du jour ...
There is no /4GB switch. There never will be one on a 32 bit
operating system.
The answer to you second question is probably. It all depends
on how XP manages the physical memory.
The /3GB switch controls the size of the user portion of the
virtual address space (which is not the same as
RAM).
The operating system must be mapped into your virtual address
space if: 1. You expect see output on the screen
2. You expect to send data to the operating system from the
keyboard 3. You like to use a mouse
4. You want to read from mass storage or to write to it.
5. You want to access the internet
6. You want to send output to your printer
7. You want to use your scanner.
Now, if you don't want to do any of those things, you don't
need a computer. Jim
Thank you, Jim. Here is my main and ONLY interest: I want my
applications, primarily graphics apps such as my scanner and
graphics editor, to run as quickly as possible by giving them the
most possible room in usable RAM, at the same time as a dozen
other things are sitting in memory but basically unused. In my
case, I've got 3 instances of Windows Explorer on my task bar,
IE6, OE6, Excel, Word, Taskmanager itself, the Recycle Bin, a
couple of NNTP news readers/posters such as Xnews that I'm using
to compose this reply, PSP 9, XP's Search function, a graphics
thumbnail database, and a couple of Notepad files. NONE of those
things are ever doing anything at all, or nothing that is even a
minor user of memory, when I am doing complicated raster graphics
work in PSP, yet it is slower than I would expect with a 2.6 gig
AMD Athlon CPU and all that 4 gig/3 gig usable RAM.
My particular set of running programs isn't the issue nor is it
whether or not PSP 9 is a efficient program or not, I simply have
been curious since I had this PC custom built a couple years ago
why PSP 9 failed to run more than about 25-40% faster than it did
on a 1.6 gig AMD machine with XP SP1 and only 512 MB of memory.
If the answer is "get another graphics editor", I will thank but
say "no thanks, not right now". But, if I have my system set up
sub-optimally out of ignorance - and my computer guru and builder
nephew of mine is equally ignorant - then I would appreciate just
a heads-up and I will investigate the details on my own.
In short, I would ask you to please not lecture me on my
stupidity for wanting to do what I am doing and please not
suggest I buy a new PC with Vista, but to politely point me in a
direction that I can help myself. Thank you.
