Ram Limit

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Does anyone know what the Ram limit is on WINXP and WINXP PRO.
I work on large databases ( 1 gig > ) and I would like to cut out all
the Swap File action.

We also have some workstations that run Pagemaker/Quark.

Questions:
What is the technical limit?
What is the practical limit?
 
Scott Burke said:
Does anyone know what the Ram limit is on WINXP and WINXP PRO.
I work on large databases ( 1 gig > ) and I would like to cut out all
the Swap File action.
Click to expand...

XP will handle up to 4 GB of RAM. There have been several posts
recently to the effect that if you have 4GB loaded, the OS reports
some smaller amount.
 
Besides memory, the Mass Storage system in most computers is
the biggest bottleneck. Along with more RAM, installing newer
technology (SATA, SATA-II) would certainly help, especially by
storing your database on a separate SATA drive using Larger
cluster size.
 
Hi Scott... I dont frequent this group but saw ur question so I'll tell
you what I know.
32bit operating systems (WinXP and Pro) have a memory limit of 4GB
however I've been told (not sure if its true however Windows Server
2003 DOES support 8GB memory!) that Windows can take more if you use a
startup switch??? (Google it! ;)

64 bit operating systems (like Windows 64bit) also support 8GB of RAM.

One thing to bear in mind is the hardware (Your motherboard) also needs
to support up to 8GB ram!

Anyway... if 4GB is enough (and provided that your current hardware
supports it!!!!) You may still lose 512KB of that 4GB - if you wanna
know why .....Google it my friend.

Have you ever run 2GB??? Its seriously speeds up your system!! You can
pick up 2 x 1GB sticks of DDR or DDR2 memory for under £150.

I take it you are at work? I have no idea of your understanding of PC
hardware - your PC's could have upto 5 different types of memory!
However you are likely to have either SDRAM, DDR or DDR2.

Bear in mind many work desktops/workstations (especially Small Form
Factor (small PCs)) only have TWO memory slots!!

If you want to find out about your PC hardware - run a program like
cpuz (www.cpuid.org) on the desktop - that should give some clues.
 
Thank you Tim.


Tim Slattery said:
XP will handle up to 4 GB of RAM. There have been several posts
recently to the effect that if you have 4GB loaded, the OS reports
some smaller amount.
Click to expand...
 
Scott said:
Does anyone know what the Ram limit is on WINXP and WINXP PRO.
Click to expand...


First, note that it's not XP vs. XP Pro. There is no product called simply
"Windows XP." The two basic "flavors" of XP are XP Home and XP Professional.

The limit is the same for both XP Home and XP Professional: 4GB.
 
Scott Burke said:
Does anyone know what the Ram limit is on WINXP and WINXP PRO.
I work on large databases ( 1 gig > ) and I would like to cut out all
the Swap File action.

We also have some workstations that run Pagemaker/Quark.

Questions:
What is the technical limit?
What is the practical limit?
Click to expand...
You cannot install more than 4GB on a 32 bit processor no matter what OS you
use; that is the technical limit.
No process can address more than 3GB by the design of the OS. But, if you
only install 3GB, remember that there is non-paged pool which cannot be
swapped to disk.

You must determine how well your systems work with amounts less than 4GB
because program load makes some difference.

However, you will gain more improvement by using faster disks (for example)
because the database must reside there. I would suggest SATA 10,000 rpm
drives with as large a buffer as they sell.
You need both SATA and 10,000 rpm.
Jim
 
Frobinrobin said:
Hi Scott... I dont frequent this group but saw ur question so I'll tell
you what I know.
32bit operating systems (WinXP and Pro) have a memory limit of 4GB
however I've been told (not sure if its true however Windows Server
2003 DOES support 8GB memory!) that Windows can take more if you use a
startup switch??? (Google it! ;)
Click to expand...

I'm extremely skeptical about this claim. 32-bit hardware has a 32-bit
address space. 2**32 = 4,294,967,296 bytes. Unless the hardware and
software do something extraordinary (remember memory banks and
expanded memory?) that's all the physical RAM that the machine can
talk to.

64-bit machines, of course, can address much more. The limits (AFAIK)
are *far* short of the theoretical maximum, 2**64
(18,446,744,073,709,551,616), but I don't know exactly what they are.
 
Hi Ken,
I thought I would ask. Remember we are talking Microsoft. :)

Thanks for your imput.
 
HI Jim,
It looks like my current computer needs more than just ram.
Pitty.... I just got it configured just right.

Oh well. If the boss needs the job done faster, he will just have
to spring for a new system.

ooH the pain. :D

Thanks
Scott Burke
 
I'm extremely skeptical about this claim. 32-bit hardware has a 32-bit
address space. 2**32 = 4,294,967,296 bytes. Unless the hardware and
software do something extraordinary (remember memory banks and
expanded memory?) that's all the physical RAM that the machine can
talk to.
Click to expand...



To run x86 software on a mobo with more than 4GB rquires;

(a) the mobo has "PAE" (program address extension) hardware. This is
an Intel invention. I think this may be common on multi-CPU mobos
that have slots for more than 4GB. RTFM. (There is another name or
PAE, but I can't recall it at the moment.

(b) the OS supports PAE (All Windows Server versions I know of, do)

(c) The application has to make PAE calls, so it needs to say it can
exploit PAE in the specs. The only application I ever worked on that
could was Oracle server.

Maybe Windows server can use RAM above 4GB for buffers, or something
even if the application didn't use PAE. maybe if you are running Quark
and Oracle PAE kicks in. It woudl make sense. I never tried that.
 
To run x86 software on a mobo with more than 4GB rquires;

(a) the mobo has "PAE" (program address extension) hardware. This is
an Intel invention. I think this may be common on multi-CPU mobos
that have slots for more than 4GB. RTFM. (There is another name or
PAE, but I can't recall it at the moment.
Click to expand...

Thanks! I didn't know this. It allows for a 36-bit address space for
physical RAM, which translates into 64GB of RAM.
(b) the OS supports PAE (All Windows Server versions I know of, do)
Click to expand...

I found this page:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/pae/default.mspx
It and the pages it links to detail the way PAE is supported in
various MS operating systems. Different server systems support
different max amounts of RAM, and use it different ways.

Since we're in an XP group: it says that PAE is supported in XP Pro,
but XP Pro still supports a max of 4GB of RAM. PAE is only used in XP
Pro to enable DEP (Data Execution Prevention). But in a table on the
"Operating systems and PAE" page it says that XP supports PAE and AWE
(Address Windowing Extensions) API, which seems to imply that an
application could use that API to get access to more than 4GB of
virtual memory. To put it mildly, that's not clear.
 
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