Anyway to use more than 4GB of RAM?

[CaptainChaos]

My computer actually has 9GB of RAM and it kind of sucks that I can only use 2GB. I have tried using the 4GB of RAM, I am just wondering if it there is anyway to use more if you have it?

 

I cannot believe Beth makes an artificial 2GB limit. It's like they don't even know that PCs exist.

[headbomb]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=skyrim+4gb

[hipolipolopigus]

It's not selectively imposing a limit. It's the default setting, but it's not even hard for them to change it when they're compiling. Have a look at my post here to see how easy it is.

 

I have 10gb of DDR3 and I use the LAA fix on the original binary for several reasons;

• No Steam enforcement
  
• No trickery involved to get the LAA fix working
  
• Not much point in patching up right now, things are more broken than ever!
  

[CaptainChaos]

@headbomb. um thanks, I guess. I got the 4GB file/mod. I was looking to see if I could use MORE than 4GB. Sorry, I thought I was clear about that, but re-reading the above, I guess it was more confusing than I thought.

 

@hip-longname: thanks, that was actually really useful!

[csgators]

and yet every time I check when using the patch it's using way less than 2 GB. :rolleyes:

[kamatsudash]

The *only* way Skyrim will *ever* use more than 4gb of ram is if Bethseda makes a 64-bit executable.

 

Because as it is, Skyrim is a 32-bit program and so can only use up to 2gb by default, or up to either 3gb or 4gb with the LAA flag set (either manually set on the original unpatched .exe or via something like the 4gb enabler). Because of the way windows handles memory and memory allocation, 32-bit applications can't go beyond these limits - 2gb by default, 3gb on a 32-bit operating system and 4gb on a 64-bit operating system. The limitation was not introduced by Bethseda or made by them - this limitation is hardwired into the operating system itself (so blame Microsoft :P). The only way around this is to make Skyrim 64-bit - 64-bit executable would allow it to use more ram (assuming it was programmed to do so).

 

Sadly there's 2 chances of Bethseda actually doing this IMO - Buckley's and none.

[CaptainChaos]

@Kam, thanks that helps a lot. Is it possible to make a 64bit game backward compatible with 32bit systems? If so, is it much harder to do? If not, why don't do they do this? This is insane. Any decent gaming rig has AT LEAST 4GB of RAM. And many PC users basically are older gamers who can afford them (the youngins all have consoles :) so why not cater properly to us? W E I R D.

[kamatsudash]

@Kam, thanks that helps a lot. Is it possible to make a 64bit game backward compatible with 32bit systems? If so, is it much harder to do? If not, why don't do they do this? This is insane. Any decent gaming rig has AT LEAST 4GB of RAM. And many PC users basically are older gamers who can afford them (the youngins all have consoles :) so why not cater properly to us? W E I R D.

 

Truthfully I don't know if you can run 64-bit programs on 32-bit operating systems - I'm not a programmer so no idea if it's possible to make them backwards compatible. As far as I know, 64-bit programs can't be run on 32-bit operating systems, but you can obviously run 32-bit programs on both 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems.

 

The reason we have no 64-bit executable (and no LAA flag set) is because the Skyrim was primarily marketed and sold to Consoles with the PC market being more of an afterthought. Consoles are 32-bit so couldn't use a 64-bit program and because of their low amounts of memory wouldn't need LAA flag set anyways (they have less than 1gb ram iirc). Bethseda obviously doesn't want to deal with having 2 or 3 different sets of executable's to deal with (32-bit w/o LAA for consoles, 32-bit w/LAA for PC and/maybe 64-bit for 64-bit PC's), so PC user's are stuck with a non-LAA aware 32-bit program so Bethseda can easily patch it for all 3 systems at once (XBox360, PS3 & PC).

 

From reading the official boars, I've seen rough sales figures put out there. Claims that on consoles sales were 4-5 million vs PC sales of 700k-1 million. It's pretty easy to see why PC sales are an afterthought for a company that's just focused on sales, sales, sales and revenue when consoles sold 4-7 times the numbers that PC copies sold.

 

and just some interesting stats taken from Steam Hardware Survey:

 

- 38.04% of all participants are still using a 32-bit Windows

- 56.23% use 64-bit Windows

- the rest are Mac users (5.73%)

- 55.63% of participants have 4gb or more of ram

- 40.91% of participants have 2-3gb of ram

[PavelkCZ]

@Kam, thanks that helps a lot. Is it possible to make a 64bit game backward compatible with 32bit systems? If so, is it much harder to do? If not, why don't do they do this?

 

From the programmer point of view, the short answer is simple. No, it is not possible to make a 64bit application compatible with 32bit operating system.

 

The long answer is something like - "Yes, it is possible, but you must modify large part of the operating system itself, write the whole set of development tools etc."

Actually, it was done in the past. When PCs had the 16bit operating systems called MS-DOS, there was a possibility to run 32bit applications on this system if the system had a 386/486 processor.

But you must have the thing called "Phar Lap DOS Extender" (basically, the 32bit operating system working on top of MS-DOS) and also a special compiler, which was able to cooperate with this DOS Extender. In 90s, there was a lot of applications, which used this. Mainly CAD systems and similar.

 

But today, nobody will modify 32bit version of Windows just to be able to run a 64bit game.

[CaptainChaos]

Excellent technical answers, thanks. Yes, I remember MS DOS! haha. And I remember Atari Basic, for which I could make simple black jack games, haha. It seems as if the console market really strikes home here, but I guess 1/3 of the people still have their 32bit systems. Gaming rigs are WAY out there ahead of the curve I see. Well, I guess when they have like Xbox2010 games will get better. Ha, and some delusional souls still talk about how much better than computers are dedicated gaming console platforms - hilarious.