WIN XP & VISTA 32bit ..How much RAM can I get ?

[Frank McCoy]

In alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt "Trimble Bracegirdle"

This thread has improved my understanding Re: XP & VISTA 32bit
RAM limitations .
But I'm really quite depressed to find I'm struggling with a situation I
thought
I'd left with Windows 98 ..when I tried to find out what it did with more
than 1Gig RAM.
(No Bunny actuarially knows for sure).

Um ... It actually *downgrades* when more than 512meg is installed.
And, usually, to get best results with that much, you need tweaks.
(Not as bad a s Win-95 in that regard, but ....)

And that new n shiny VISTA still hasn't sorted this seems ridiculous.
Bring back Expanded Memory I say (sigh !) You knew where you were
with EMM386.EXE (or was it *.SYS ?). (Big sigh !).

It was both.
It pretty much stopped working (as did other memory managers) with
Win-98.

I still can not understand who there is no utility that can be run & report
what the state of upper memory is & what extra can be installed ??
(\__/)
(='.'=)
(")_(") Mouse.

Generally, as a rule-of-thumb:
With Win-95, stick to under 256 meg, unless you want to tweak the
system.
With Win-98, stick to under 512 meg.
With Win-XP, stick to under 4 gig.
I have no idea of what Vista handles well.

With all those, make sure your BIOS recognizes what you have properly;
and *try* to stick to the same brand, size, and preferably even same run
of chips when installing. That's not always possible, but preferable.

 

[Mike T.]

Generally, as a rule-of-thumb:

With Win-95, stick to under 256 meg, unless you want to tweak the
system.
With Win-98, stick to under 512 meg.
With Win-XP, stick to under 4 gig.
I have no idea of what Vista handles well.

I know what Vista handles well, as Vista has built-in diagnostics.
According to Vista's numerical rating system, anything over 2GB installed
for Vista would be a waste. My wife scores a 5.8 (Vista's score, not mine)
out of a possible 5.9 with exactly 2GB of RAM installed. What it would take
to get 5.9? Who frickin' cares??? -Dave

 

[Conor]

I know what Vista handles well, as Vista has built-in diagnostics.
According to Vista's numerical rating system, anything over 2GB installed
for Vista would be a waste. My wife scores a 5.8 (Vista's score, not mine)
out of a possible 5.9 with exactly 2GB of RAM installed. What it would take
to get 5.9? Who frickin' cares??? -Dave

You misunderstand the ratings system. It measures the RAM speed.

 

[johannes]

(\__/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")
Hi Johns
Much nicer type of person here than on those "ibm. com. games" groups, yes ?

I'm putting new sys together & as will be using 32 bit O/S because of
the computability & driver issues Re: 64 bit.
I just decided & ordered an extra 1 Gig of RAM for 3 Gig total.
Fills up all the slots of cause in dual channel.
I would have gone to 4 Gig if not for this uncertainty..
I don't understand the info. you've been given that Windows
use all of 4 Gigs but may show less ???

You're still better off fitting 4GB. If you fit (only) 3GB, then VISTA
will also grab some of it for itself, leaving you with much less.

 

[Mike T.]

You misunderstand the ratings system. It measures the RAM speed.

Actually, it would appear we both misunderstood the ratings system. I just
looked it up. The memory score on WEI is based on memory bandwidth (which
in turn is tied directly to memory speed). However, having too little RAM
can limit bandwidth/speed. According to the chart I read, you can't achieve
a higher score than 4.5 on the memory portion of WEI unless your physical
RAM amount is over 1.5GB. Right NOW, the WEI only goes up to 5.9. (it will
be expanded later)

As my wife's computer got a 5.8 with exactly 2GB of RAM, and scores higher
than 4.5 are only possible with more than 1.5GB of RAM, we can conclude the
following:
- You need -more than- 1.5GB of RAM to maximize memory performance in
Windows Vista
- You need no more than 2GB of RAM to *ALMOST* maximize memory performance
in Windows Vista
- It is probably possible to maximize memory performance in Windows Vista
with exactly 2GB of fast RAM (I doubt if adding more RAM would up the 5.8
to 5.9, but possibly if my wife's RAM was a TAD faster???)

Based on what you said, and what I read, I stand by my earlier assertion:
Go for 2GB of RAM, no more, no less. Buy faster RAM if you can afford it
and the mainboard supports it. -Dave

 

[Phil Weldon]

'Mike T.' wrote, in part:
| Actually, it would appear we both misunderstood the ratings system. I
just
| looked it up. The memory score on WEI is based on memory bandwidth (which
| in turn is tied directly to memory speed). However, having too little RAM
| can limit bandwidth/speed. According to the chart I read, you can't
achieve
| a higher score than 4.5 on the memory portion of WEI unless your physical
| RAM amount is over 1.5GB. Right NOW, the WEI only goes up to 5.9. (it
will
| be expanded later)

_____

Too little main memory does not reduce the memory bandwidth. It DOES
require more use of the page file. Swapping data and program pages to and
from the hard drive slows the performance of a system, but it does not
reduce the memory bandwidth.

And

"Windows and the applications that run on it have bumped their heads on the
address space limits of 32-bit processors. The Windows kernel is constrained
by default to 2GB, or half the total 32-bit virtual address space, with the
other half reserved for use by the process whose thread is currently running
on the CPU. Inside its half, the kernel has to map itself, device drivers,
the file system cache, kernel stacks, per-session code data structures, and
both non-paged (locked-in physical memory) and paged buffers allocated by
device drivers."

and other information

from

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/technetmag/issues/2007/03/VistaKernel/Default.aspx?loc=en

might help you understand how a 4 GByte memory space is used in 32-bit
Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista.

Whether you will actually see a difference if you install the maximum amount
of memory depends the mix of applications you run.

Phil Weldon


|
| | > In article <[email protected]>,
| > Mike T. says...
| >> > Generally, as a rule-of-thumb:
| >> > With Win-95, stick to under 256 meg, unless you want to tweak the
| >> > system.
| >> > With Win-98, stick to under 512 meg.
| >> > With Win-XP, stick to under 4 gig.
| >> > I have no idea of what Vista handles well.
| >> >
| >>
| >> I know what Vista handles well, as Vista has built-in diagnostics.
| >> According to Vista's numerical rating system, anything over 2GB
installed
| >> for Vista would be a waste. My wife scores a 5.8 (Vista's score, not
| >> mine)
| >> out of a possible 5.9 with exactly 2GB of RAM installed. What it would
| >> take
| >> to get 5.9? Who frickin' cares??? -Dave
| >>
| > You misunderstand the ratings system. It measures the RAM speed.
| >
|
| Actually, it would appear we both misunderstood the ratings system. I
just
| looked it up. The memory score on WEI is based on memory bandwidth (which
| in turn is tied directly to memory speed). However, having too little RAM
| can limit bandwidth/speed. According to the chart I read, you can't
achieve
| a higher score than 4.5 on the memory portion of WEI unless your physical
| RAM amount is over 1.5GB. Right NOW, the WEI only goes up to 5.9. (it
will
| be expanded later)
|
| As my wife's computer got a 5.8 with exactly 2GB of RAM, and scores higher
| than 4.5 are only possible with more than 1.5GB of RAM, we can conclude
the
| following:
| - You need -more than- 1.5GB of RAM to maximize memory performance in
| Windows Vista
| - You need no more than 2GB of RAM to *ALMOST* maximize memory
performance
| in Windows Vista
| - It is probably possible to maximize memory performance in Windows Vista
| with exactly 2GB of fast RAM (I doubt if adding more RAM would up the 5.8
| to 5.9, but possibly if my wife's RAM was a TAD faster???)
|
| Based on what you said, and what I read, I stand by my earlier assertion:
| Go for 2GB of RAM, no more, no less. Buy faster RAM if you can afford it
| and the mainboard supports it. -Dave
|
|

 

[Mike T.]

'Mike T.' wrote, in part:
| Actually, it would appear we both misunderstood the ratings system. I
just
| looked it up. The memory score on WEI is based on memory bandwidth
(which
| in turn is tied directly to memory speed). However, having too little
RAM
| can limit bandwidth/speed. According to the chart I read, you can't
achieve
| a higher score than 4.5 on the memory portion of WEI unless your
physical
| RAM amount is over 1.5GB. Right NOW, the WEI only goes up to 5.9. (it
will
| be expanded later)

_____

Too little main memory does not reduce the memory bandwidth.

Tell that to microsoft. Their WEI is based on the exact opposite of what
you just wrote. -Dave

 

[John Jordan]

As my wife's computer got a 5.8 with exactly 2GB of RAM, and scores
higher than 4.5 are only possible with more than 1.5GB of RAM, we can
conclude the following:

- You need -more than- 1.5GB of RAM to maximize memory performance
in Windows Vista
- You need no more than 2GB of RAM to *ALMOST* maximize memory
performance in Windows Vista

Careful. That sounded like you were equating maximum memory performance
with the maximum score in an arbitrary benchmark.

 

[Dave]

Careful. That sounded like you were equating maximum memory performance
with the maximum score in an arbitrary benchmark.

My point was, if you believe Microsoft's (HARDWARE) performance ratings, it
would seem that buying more than 2GB of RAM, even for VISTA, is pointless.

Again, simply stated . . . if the scale only goes up to a maximum of 5.9,
with higher scores being better, and 2GB will score a 5.8, does it MATTER
how much RAM you need to score a 5.9? Not really.

And I suspect many systems would max out at 5.9 with exactly 2GB of physical
RAM installed anyway. -Dave

 

[Phil Weldon]

'Dave' wrote:
| Tell that to microsoft. Their WEI is based on the exact opposite of what
| you just wrote. -Dave
_____

Believe what you will, but your read too much into the 'WEI' score. "The
memory SCORE is limited" is NOT the same as "the memory BANDWIDTH is
limited." The 'WEI' is a simple scale for simple evaluation. It is not
meant to explain anything.

Try rereading
http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/pages/458117.aspx

Phil Weldon

|
| | > 'Mike T.' wrote, in part:
| > | Actually, it would appear we both misunderstood the ratings system. I
| > just
| > | looked it up. The memory score on WEI is based on memory bandwidth
| > (which
| > | in turn is tied directly to memory speed). However, having too little
| > RAM
| > | can limit bandwidth/speed. According to the chart I read, you can't
| > achieve
| > | a higher score than 4.5 on the memory portion of WEI unless your
| > physical
| > | RAM amount is over 1.5GB. Right NOW, the WEI only goes up to 5.9.
(it
| > will
| > | be expanded later)
| >
| > _____
| >
| > Too little main memory does not reduce the memory bandwidth.
|
| Tell that to microsoft. Their WEI is based on the exact opposite of what
| you just wrote. -Dave
|
|

 

[Jeff]

My point was, if you believe Microsoft's (HARDWARE) performance ratings,
it would seem that buying more than 2GB of RAM, even for VISTA, is
pointless.

Again, simply stated . . . if the scale only goes up to a maximum of 5.9,
with higher scores being better, and 2GB will score a 5.8, does it MATTER
how much RAM you need to score a 5.9? Not really.

And I suspect many systems would max out at 5.9 with exactly 2GB of
physical RAM installed anyway. -Dave

....just because Microsoft has a scale that attempts to summarize the
performance of a computer does not mean that the scale is valid for all
measures of computer performance. What helps with some applications might
deteriorate the performance of other applications. Check out Phil's post and
another I just made on another thread. Having 2 GBs is probably ideal unless
you are using multiple ram intensive applications at the same time. In that
case, you may start using the pagefile instead of ram and that will slow
things down. So, a single summary measure like Microsoft's will simply
compromise between the two situations. Checking the performance tab under
task manager should give you an idea whether you need more than 2 gigs.

Jeff

 

[John Jordan]

My point was, if you believe Microsoft's (HARDWARE) performance ratings,
it would seem that buying more than 2GB of RAM, even for VISTA, is
pointless.

It's not a meaningful figure unless you understand *why* they picked it.
The point is that having substantially more RAM than your working set
makes little difference to performance, and MS don't think that many
users will have a working set >2GB.

It's true that most users will see little difference beyond 1GB on XP or
1.5GB on Vista. On the other hand, most users will see little difference
between a 7300GS and an 8800GTX. If you play recent games, you need a
fast video card. If you have a large working set, you may need more than
2GB of RAM. Basing a PC purchase on arbitrary performance ratings is daft.

 

[Trimble Bracegirdle]

It worries me that the decorative screen-toy made by the People who
call themselves Very, Very, Small & Soft , Which IMO is clearly
designed to patronize & flatter with baby level statistics ,
is taken so seriously be so many.
It called a marketing device.
(\__/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")

 

[Paul-B]

VISTA, is pointless

That bit I agree with...

 

[johns]

Well, can Microsoft answer this question? Why
does Gothic 3 run better and smoother in 4 gigs
of ram, and it is jerky in 2 gigs of ram? And then
add to that .. Why does Gothic 3 run better on
a dual core processor, than on a single core ?
If they can't give us a non-jargonized answer,
then I think they don't know what they are
talking about ... and it would be nice to know
who actually wrote the Microsoft OSes. Personally
I think the reviewers and article writers are just
using jargon, and don't really have a clue. I don't
believe any of them understand the difference
between I/O mapping and Memory mapping.

johns