Utilization of >4G Ram on Server 2003?

[Marc Reinig]

I am going to be running applications on 2003 Advanced Server with 8
Gigabytes of
RAM. The performance of these applications goes way down if certain parts
of memory get paged out to disk.

How does Advanced Server use the memory for Win32 applications that are not
using PAE?

Does it just let more fit into memory until the 8 Gigabytes are used up?

If I have a single Win32 app running without PAE, does it avoid going to the
paging file as much as WinXP might. i.e. does it use the remaining memory
as a cache for the paging file?

Thanks in advance.

Marc Reinig
Laboratory for Adaptive Optics
UCO/Lick Observatory

 

[Jeff Qiu [MSFT]]

Hi Marc,

Thanks for posting!

I am Jeff and I understand your issue to be:
You have some concern regarding the memory usage when there are 8G RAM.

If I have misunderstood your issue please let me know.

First, I would like to clarify that PAE is the added ability of the IA32
processor to address more than 4 GB of physical memory.

Windows 2000 Advanced Server, Windows 2000 Datacenter Server, Windows
Server 2003, Enterprise Edition, and Windows Server 2003, Datacenter
Edition, can use PAE to take advantage of physical memory beyond 4 GB. To
enable PAE, use the /PAE switch in the Boot.ini file.

This has nothing to do with the application.

It is the OS that supports it.

If this switch is not added in the boot.ini, the system will not use >4G
RAM.

Here is an article about it.
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=283037

You may also like to add the /3G swtich to make the user mode use 3G RAM.

Hope this helps.

Please feel free to let me know if you have any further concerns or
questions regarding the issue.

Best Regards,

Jeff Qiu
Microsoft Online Partner Support
MCSE 2k/2k3, MCSA 2k/2k3, MCDBA
Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security
This posting is provided "as is" with no warranties and confers no rights.

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