Windows and RAM.

[tnu]

I've been thinking about upgrading windows because Windows XP 32 Bit doesn't seem to recognize all of my RAM. My dad who worked with computers for a long time said that I should stick with a 32 bit operating system. But from what I gathered here

 

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa366778%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

 

No 32 bit OS supports mroe then 4 gigs of Memory. Can somebody help clear this up?

[Aenyalu]

As far as i know this is correct. Also keep in mind that those 4 gigs means total system memory including your graphic card memory, your hard disk cache and whatnot, so it probably uses more about 3 gigs of RAM, asuming you have a 1 gig graphic card.

[Erik005]

64 bit operating systems used to have a lot of problems and 32 bit used to be the norm. XP-64bit is a horrible operating system indeed.

 

But this changed with windows vista an subsequently most pc's with windows 7 are 64 bit.

 

So the driver support is very good now and 32bit is becoming rare.

[kalikka]

Oh god... I cant understand what kind of man would recommend 32bit crap.

64bit was bad when XP was still new but that was... Way too long ago.

[Werne]

Oh god... I cant understand what kind of man would recommend 32bit crap.

64bit was bad when XP was still new but that was... Way too long ago.

Whoa, whoa, hold on there a minute. 32-bit systems are still less resource demanding than 64-bit, a difference between a x86 and x64 Windows is around 150-200MB on a 2GB RAM system while 32-bit OS heats up my CPU less than 64-bit. My wife has 4GB RAM on her PC and Win7 x64 took about 2.1GB, I just installed it and booted.

 

There's also another thing, most games are still made for 32-bit operating systems. Even with Large Address Aware, a 32-bit game can't access over 4GB RAM, that would be 3GB on a 32-bit OS. Performance is the same, stability is sometimes worse on a 64-bit OS (FO3 as an example, never crashes for me on 32-bit XP, crashed once per hour on 64-bit Win7). 64-bit OS has "support" for 32-bit applications through a 32-bit emulator but they don't run natively. It's like Wine on Linux/UNIX/Mac, just a freakin' emulator. I know Debian GNU successfully implement multi-arch support (running 32-bit applications natively on a 64-bit OS) but it seems that doesn't exist on Windows.

 

 

 

To sum this up:

 

The downside of a 32-bit system is that it's limited to 3.7GB RAM while 64-bit can go up to 16EB if I recall correctly (for Windows it depends on the distribution). As far as I know, only Linux/UNIX can bypass the 32-bit RAM limitation using a PAE kernel (PAE kernel supports up to 64GB RAM on a 32-bit system). Windows limits PAE to 4GB due to it's licensing policy (aka, cause they're pricks :dry:) but 32-bit Windows is also capable of using over 4GB RAM with an unofficial kernel patch (stability questionable).

 

The downside of a 64-bit OS is it's price, limited support for 32-bit applications and limited hardware support. A 64-bit Win7 is still nearly double the price of the 32-bit, 120$ for Win7 x86, 220$ for Win7 x64, 600$ for Win7 Ultimate x86-64. The emulation I mentioned above is also a downside, forcing processes to to use 32-bit libraries takes away performance. And there are still people using PCs with i686 CPUs, IA-64 is not present in older dual-core Intel CPUs and they don't support 64-bit operating systems.

 

 

 

And now think, a 32-bit game can't access over 4GB RAM, not even on a 64-bit OS, which gives it practically gives only 1GB extra to the game compared to 32-bit. You can have 32GB RAM but Skyrim will only use 4GB max, not much of an improvement, don't you think? Now, 32-bit OS architecture has been around for a long time, since 1985, while 64-bit was introduced in 2003 which makes x86 an older and more ironed-out (more stable, better developed, better supported) OS architecture.

 

With that in mind, I believe x86 is not dead, nor will it die in the near future. And yes, I still very much support and suggest using 32-bit systems over 64-bit, at least when it comes to Windows.

Edited June 2, 2013 by Werne

[Erik005]

Where is windows 7 64 that more expensive?

 

When you buy a full windows version you get a 32 and a 64 bit disk.

[Werne]

When you buy a full windows version you get a 32 and a 64 bit disk.

Maybe in a normal country, out here you get one or the other and if you don't want that, you can go pay 600$ for Ultimate. Note that this is the same country where you can go install a chip to play burned game backups (or pirated games) on PS3/Xbox, in an official Sony/Microsoft repair shop, and get 6 months warranty on that. Not to mention software piracy up in here. :rolleyes:

 

Put simply:

 

http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/32747227.jpg

 

[Vagrant0]

Where is windows 7 64 that more expensive?

 

When you buy a full windows version you get a 32 and a 64 bit disk.

Not really.

 

Usually, windows 7 came in either a 32 bit or 64 bit version, not both. If you can still find it, I would suggest either getting the 64 bit version of windows 7, or looking into a Linux based OS then use your existing 32 bit version of windows in order to run games that are not compatible with Linux. Windows 8 is also an option, but the interface changes can really be off-putting.

[Erik005]

For windows 7 or 8 64 bit will only be the better choice if you have more than 4gb of ram

 

When you buy the oem or new system builder version you have to choose between 32 or 64 bit.

 

The full licence windows 7 contains two disks but is more expensive.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116716

 

Technically a store is not allowed to sell oem versions without a whole new pc but some will

Edited June 2, 2013 by Erik005

[FMod]

No 32 bit OS supports mroe then 4 gigs of Memory. Can somebody help clear this up?

Not true. A lot of 32-bit OS support, typically, between 64 GB and 1024 GB (more is limited by 40-bit memory addresses in the CPU).

Windows XP, XP SP1, Server 2003 all support PAE and a lot more than 4 GB of RAM.

 

It's been disabled on XP SP2 and home versions of later OS to promote 64-bit versions and server versions specifically. Marketing decision, not a technical limit. The memory can still be accessed by using a ramdrive and a paging file on it, so that Windows unifies the memory again. The upper 4GB-16GB will work a little slower, but still fast enough.