XP Home, 32bit question

[--Ivan--]

Hi,

i was building me a new computer putting in

Pentium 4 duo processor 3.16ghz
500 gig hdd
4 gig ram
512mb video card

Question i have is that i heard putting more then 2 gig of ram in Windows xp
is not going to be used at all because 32bit only use up to 2gig ram and rest
is just waist of money, is that true or will it improve my computer??

thanks for your help

 

[Kelly]

Do some reading here:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=xp+2+gig+ram+limit&aq=f&oq=

--

All the Best,
Kelly (MS-MVP/DTS&XP)

Taskbar Repair Tool Plus!
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/taskbarplus!.htm

 

[Phisherman]

Hi,

i was building me a new computer putting in

Pentium 4 duo processor 3.16ghz
500 gig hdd
4 gig ram
512mb video card

Question i have is that i heard putting more then 2 gig of ram in Windows xp
is not going to be used at all because 32bit only use up to 2gig ram and rest
is just waist of money, is that true or will it improve my computer??

thanks for your help

First, the motherboard has to be able to handle over 2 GB, many do. If
you are running typical applications, performance most likely will not
improve with a lot of RAM. The extra money could buy a faster CPU.

 

[Tim Slattery]

Question i have is that i heard putting more then 2 gig of ram in Windows xp
is not going to be used at all because 32bit only use up to 2gig ram and rest
is just waist of money, is that true or will it improve my computer??

For RAM usage in a 32-bit OS, look here:
http://members.cox.net/slatteryt/RAM.html

You should be able to use 3 or 3.25 GB or so of RAM. There is no 2GB
limit on RAM (in the OS anyway, your motherboard may be limited). Each
process in the machine gets a 4GB virtual memory, half of that is
reserved for the OS, so the process can use 2GB of VM. Maybe that's
what you're thinking of.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Question i have is that i heard putting more then 2 gig of ram in Windows xp
is not going to be used at all because 32bit only use up to 2gig ram

Sorry, but what you heard is completely incorrect. The maximum amount
32-bit client versions of Windows can use is around 3.1GB.

and rest
is just waist of money, is that true or will it improve my computer??

Whether having more than 2GB will improve your performance depends on
what apps you run. For the great majority of people, even 2GB is
considerably more than needed, and performance will no better than
with 1GB and maybe even no better than with 512MB.

Here's my standard post on this subject:

How much RAM you need for good performance is *not* a
one-size-fits-all situation. You get good performance if the amount of
RAM you have keeps you from using the page file, and that depends on
what apps you run. Most people running a typical range of business
applications find that somewhere around 512MB works well, others need
more. Almost anyone will see poor performance with less than 256MB.
Some people, particularly those doing things like editing large
photographic images, can see a performance boost by adding even more
than 512MB--sometimes much more.

If you are currently using the page file significantly, more memory
will decrease or eliminate that usage, and improve your performance.
If you are not using the page file significantly, more memory will do
nothing for you. Go to
http://billsway.com/notes_public/winxp_tweaks/ and download
WinXP-2K_Pagefile.zip and monitor your pagefile usage. That should
give you a good idea of whether more memory can help, and if so, how
much more.