Max amount of RAM for XP?

[Guest]

Hey guys. I am sure someone has brought this up and I searched for it but could not find what I was looking for. I was wondering what is the maximun amount of RAM windows xp supprts/runs to full potential. I am thinking about adding another gig of memory to my pc. I was told by someone at my work that windows will only utilize a certain amount of memory under 1 gig. He said it would basically be a waste and would not change the performance. After hearing this, I am having second thoughts about upgrading. Please reply. Thanks alot!

 

[Michael D. Alligood]

Windows XP can handle up to 4 gigs of RAM. If you motherboard can handle it,
use it! Just try using Windows XP and Office 2003 together -- 4 gigs is a
good idea!

--
Michael D. Alligood
MCSA, MCP, A+, Network+,
i-Net+, CIW A, CIW CI

Hey guys. I am sure someone has brought this up and I searched for it but

could not find what I was looking for. I was wondering what is the maximun
amount of RAM windows xp supprts/runs to full potential. I am thinking
about adding another gig of memory to my pc. I was told by someone at my
work that windows will only utilize a certain amount of memory under 1 gig.
He said it would basically be a waste and would not change the performance.
After hearing this, I am having second thoughts about upgrading. Please
reply. Thanks alot!

 

[S.Sengupta]

maximum RAM support is up to 4GB

regards,
ssg MS-MVP
pronetworks.org

 

[Harry Ohrn]

XP can handle 2 Terabytes or more than you can install on your system I'm
sure. When you ask about "full potential" though that is more dependant on
your needs than anything else. XP runs well on 256MB if you use it for
everyday tasks. Many people find that anything over 500MBs is unnecessary.
But it really depends on your needs. If you play a lot of resource hungry
games, do a lot of video editing, graphics or photo work or sound editing
then 1 - 2 GBs is likely in order.

Harry Ohrn MS-MVP [Shell/User]
www.webtree.ca/windowsxp

 

[JAX]

XP tops out at 4 gig's of RAM. The "Terabytes" thing is hard drive stuff.

JAX

XP can handle 2 Terabytes or more than you can install on your system I'm
sure. When you ask about "full potential" though that is more dependant on
your needs than anything else. XP runs well on 256MB if you use it for
everyday tasks. Many people find that anything over 500MBs is unnecessary.
But it really depends on your needs. If you play a lot of resource hungry
games, do a lot of video editing, graphics or photo work or sound editing
then 1 - 2 GBs is likely in order.

Harry Ohrn MS-MVP [Shell/User]
www.webtree.ca/windowsxp

Hey guys. I am sure someone has brought this up and I searched for it but
could not find what I was looking for. I was wondering what is the maximun
amount of RAM windows xp supprts/runs to full potential. I am thinking
about adding another gig of memory to my pc. I was told by someone at my
work that windows will only utilize a certain amount of memory under 1
gig. He said it would basically be a waste and would not change the
performance. After hearing this, I am having second thoughts about
upgrading. Please reply. Thanks alot!

 

[John Vogel]

XP can handle 2 Terabytes or more...

WOW! That'd be an awful lot of RAM!

Actually Windows XP Pro can handle up to 4Gig (not 2T), you're probably
thinking about the Hard Drive, not the RAM.

 

[Frank Jelenko]

Whoa. You can see how much RAM your system is using through Windows Task
Manager. I run Win XP with MS Office [with Word and Excel and Powerpoint
open - total RAM used in llow 200MB's. I only get close to 500MB when
developing a business analytics report that is joining two very large
tables.

 

[Ken Blake]

In

Hey guys. I am sure someone has brought this up and I searched for
it but could not find what I was looking for. I was wondering what is
the maximun amount of RAM windows xp supprts/runs to full potential.


4GB.


I am thinking about adding another gig of memory to my pc. I was
told by someone at my work that windows will only utilize a certain
amount of memory under 1 gig. He said it would basically be a waste
and would not change the performance.

He has no idea what he's talking about.

After hearing this, I am having
second thoughts about upgrading. Please reply. Thanks alot!

However, whether you will make effective use of that much RAM is
another story; it might well be overkill. RAM is helpful to the
extent that it keeps you from using the page file. Once you have
enough RAM for that, more does almost nothing extra for you. How
much RAM you need to not use the page file depends on what apps
you run, but for most people running a common range of business
applications, it's somewhere between 256 and 512MB. Some people,
however--for example those editing large photographic images--can
effectively use more, often much more.

 

[Mark Salloway]

Hi Adam
Windows XP will support up to 4Gb of Ram. Depending what you use your
machine for that much may be a tad overkill. Windows will user more physical
memory for itself if it is available but that only offers a performance
increase to a point. If you spend a lot of your time running Visual Studio,
do video editing or large picture work then you'd probably benefit from
having 1Gb or more depending on your needs. But for just running the machine
well, general desktop use with office, IE and a good majority of games 512Mb
would run quite nicely.

Mark

 

[Harry Ohrn]

Wow 2 corrections. I feel special.

--

Harry Ohrn MS-MVP [Shell/User]
www.webtree.ca/windowsxp

XP can handle 2 Terabytes or more than you can install on your system I'm
sure. When you ask about "full potential" though that is more dependant on
your needs than anything else. XP runs well on 256MB if you use it for
everyday tasks. Many people find that anything over 500MBs is unnecessary.
But it really depends on your needs. If you play a lot of resource hungry
games, do a lot of video editing, graphics or photo work or sound editing
then 1 - 2 GBs is likely in order.

Harry Ohrn MS-MVP [Shell/User]
www.webtree.ca/windowsxp

Hey guys. I am sure someone has brought this up and I searched for it
but could not find what I was looking for. I was wondering what is the
maximun amount of RAM windows xp supprts/runs to full potential. I am
thinking about adding another gig of memory to my pc. I was told by
someone at my work that windows will only utilize a certain amount of
memory under 1 gig. He said it would basically be a waste and would not
change the performance. After hearing this, I am having second thoughts
about upgrading. Please reply. Thanks alot!

 

[Ron Martell]

Hey guys. I am sure someone has brought this up and I searched for it but could not find what I was looking for. I was wondering what is the maximun amount of RAM windows xp supprts/runs to full potential. I am thinking about adding another gig of memory to my pc. I was told by someone at my work that windows will only utilize a certain amount of memory under 1 gig. He said it would basically be a waste and would not change the performance. After hearing this, I am having second thoughts about upgrading. Please reply. Thanks alot!

As others have said, Windows XP will suport up to 4 gb of physical
RAM. There are special considerations and a possible boot parameter
that needs to be configured when you go beyond 3 gb of RAM with
Windows XP.

Adding more memory can noticeably improve performance only if the
added memory results in reduced usage of the virtual memory paging
file. Therefore if the paging file is not currently being used to any
significant extent then adding more memory will not provide a
significant improvement.

Unfortunately there is no ready way of determing actual paging file
usage provided with Windows XP - it does not have an equivalent to the
'Memory Manager - Swap File In Use" reporting provided by the System
Monitor utility in Windows 95/98/Me.

There is a free utility that you can download and run which will
provide this information for you. It was written by MVP Bill James and
you can get if from
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_pagefilemon.htm or from
http://billsway.com/notes_public/WinXP_Tweaks/

If that utility shows actual page file usage of 50 mb or more on a
regular basis then that is indicative of fairly significant paging
file activity. Adding more RAM will reduce or even eliminate entirely
this activity thereby improving performance.

This apples regardless of how much or how little RAM is currently
installed in the computer, at least up to the 4 gb RAM

Good luck


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."

 

[Tom]

Windows XP can handle up to 4 gigs of RAM. If you motherboard can handle it,
use it! Just try using Windows XP and Office 2003 together -- 4 gigs is a
good idea!

LMAO!

You are extreme! Only the most intensive users of graphics applications (AutoCad comes to mind), of which quite a few instances would need to be running at the same time, along with all office too, would not need that much RAM. I have 2gigs of RAM, and can open Office in its entirety, as well as IE, and Photoshop CS, and still have over 1.6gigs to spare!

 

[Tim Slattery]

XP can handle 2 Terabytes or more than you can install on your system I'm
sure.

Wrong. XP can handle up to 4 gigabytes of RAM. Not all motherboards
will let you install that much.


The FAT32 file system can theoretically handle partitions as large as
2 terabytes, though various things would make such a partition an
*extremely* bad idea. The NTFS file system handles enormous partition
much better than FAT32 (and its theoretical maximum size is
astronomical, much bigger than any drive manufactured today).

 

[Alex Nichol]

Hey guys. I am sure someone has brought this up and I searched for it but could not find what I was looking for. I was wondering what is the maximun amount of RAM windows xp supprts/runs to full potential. I am thinking about adding another gig of memory to my pc. I was told by someone at my work that windows will only utilize a certain amount of memory under 1 gig

He is wrong; probably having a half baked awareness of a problem with
Windows 98/ME (and which is easy to fix). XP will be entirely happy to
2GB; above 3GB you have to use a special setting, and it is not
desirable. The ceiling is 4GB.

As to whether an extra 1GB will be *useful* I suggest that you get the
tool linked from the 'How big a page file' section of my page
www.aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm, and use it to monitor actual usage of the
page file in your typical work pattern. Unless you see significant use
- relative to the next sensible step in RAM -, then more RAM will do
nothing for you. Any usage, over maybe 20 or 30 MB that the system
seems to park there regardless, gives a fair guide in deciding how much
would be worth getting