Upgraded from 2 gig to 4 gig, vista 32 only sees 2 gig!

[SpirituSanctu]

How frustrating, i updated my bios settings, and am using vista 32. Went from 2 gig to 4 gig, and the 4 gigs can be seen in the bios AND in windows programs like CPUZ or pcwizard, but in windows system display it only sees 2048mb! How frustrating! Any suggestions?

[Dark_Grue]

<p>In order to have the last ~1GB of memory be usable, you'd have to switch to a 64-bit OS (which won't likely improve your gaming experience at all).</p><p>Read <a href="http://www.dansdata.com/askdan00015.htm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.dansdata.com/askdan00015.htm</a>, Dan does a much better job of explaining it. He also explains why the boot.ini switches most people <i>swear</i> will help you - won't.</p>

[liscio]

<p>32-bit windows only support up to 3gb ram. It might only show 2gb if you are using 2 x 2gb chips. You need 64-bit windows to use 4gb.</p><p>If you had 1x1gb chip + 1x2gb chip you would use 3gb however.</p>

[kjfett4]

<p>Well, I had a big long right up on how virtual memory worked and how to use commands and such to deal with the issues, but that doesn't really address your problem....and since that stuff is a bit advanced and can cause driver issues if used by novice gamers....it's just as well that I remove it. <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /></p>

[Dark_Grue]

<p><cite>liscio wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>If you had 1x1gb chip + 1x2gb chip you would use 3gb however.</blockquote><p>That disables interleaving; however, which has a negative impact on performance (where the trade-off crosses over in terms of performance varies pretty widely though). I think some manufacturers may have allowed for partial interleaving (2 GB of 3 would be interleaved, and the last 1 GB wouldn't), but I don't know that was a standard, or whether the implementation really had any real-world benefit.</p><p><cite>kjfett4 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Interesting article...if you read it though, you would have noticed that even with a 64 bit OS, most of the 3-4GB range of RAM is still not "usable". <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />  To get about 4GB of usable RAM on a 64bit OS, you would need to have 5GB on the board.</blockquote><p>Well, that's true too. The legacy of memory-mapped I/O, I'm afraid. Really, for there to be any benefit, you'd want to interleave, and that means you're using (relatively) exotic 2GB DIMMs, or a motherboard with 6 memory slots (which is probably yet even more exotic). Either way, you're paying too much for hardware and have to run an O/S that is well known for not being gaming-friendly (mostly for reasons of drivers).</p><p>Price/performance/stability/practicality for gaming is going to be stuck at 2-3GB for a while, it seems...</p><p><cite>kjfett4 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>His dismissal of the adjustments to the 2GB down to 1GB for the Kernal puzzles me though....that is not a RAM issue.  It's a virtual memory issue.</blockquote><p>That's his point. The boot.ini switches don't do what is generally claimed they do. By redistributing the VM allocations of the kernel and application spaces, you're robbing Peter to pay Paul. It doesn't solve the memory addressing issue at all, which is exactly what he states in the article. It just changes the allocations of virtual memory space, and has no impact on the amount of physical memory you can address (which is less than 4GB).</p><p>It <i>may</i>, under some circumstances, have an impact on the performance of particular applications. Maybe even in this particular circumstance of EQ2. I suspect however, that the truth is that there are two factors involved: the 32-bit O/S is hardcoded to limit application's addressing space to 2GB, and 32-bit applications like EQ2 are compiled to specifically expect a no greater than 2GB memory addressing space for exactly that reason (that'd be done in the complier design, not the application), so actually giving it more would only waste the additional 1GB you gave it. The praactical upshot of which is decreased performance overall.</p><p><cite>kjfett4 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Last night, I traveled around the island I was on by griffon, then took the boat around a bit and eventually entered a busy port that resulted in the OS loading up a bit more than the 2GB of VM could handle and I crashed to the desktop.  I checked the error out online and found it to be related to the VM and a run command switch was recommended as a solution.  I tried it, restarted and when I loaded up, repeated my process.  Not only did I not crash, but I was running smoother.  In fact, I was able to turn on enviromental shadows (I am now running all setting at max except for the character shadows (they are horrid around the nose and mouth anyway) and run smoother than I ever have. <p>All the switch did was expand the usable VM to 3GB and limit the kernals VM to 1GB.</p></blockquote><p>I want to say that regardless of how much memory might be available for it to request, the application is only going to ask for and be able to use 2GB. The switch may have had other side-effects, or it may be that the change you observed was just related to an intermittant problem. Given the complexity of EQ2, you'd have to do a lot of long-term testing on a frozen configuration (which is kinda hard to do with the game always patching itself) to really be able to assert results.</p><p><cite>kjfett4 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I believe recently MS has come up with their own solution as well to the 3GB issue in this article..... <a rel="nofollow" href="http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940105 " target="_blank">http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940105 </a> It is fairly new given its end of August date...putting it just a couple weeks old.  Perhaps it might address part of people's problems as it address the way the WDDM handles what goes where.  Basically, it maintains the VC's memory virtually and uses it as needed, freeing up more of the 2GB of Virtual memory for the application.  It's not a perma solution like upgrading to 64 bit OS would be, but it's better than nothing and does a better job of working the 3GB on the board until you can upgrade to a 64 bit OS, a Mobo that can handle more than 4GB of RAM and upgrade to 5+ GB of RAM.</p></blockquote><p>That's interesting, and it's a good/logical performance increase, but it's neither a solution to the memory addressing problem, nor the 2GB per-application addressing space limitation.</p><p>Like the article says, prior to DX10, some applications would self-manage a copy of the framebuffer memory inside of the application's addressing space. As video memory got larger, those copies of video memory became far more likely to consume all of the 2GB application addressing space (a single copy of a 512MB framebuffer would consume 25% of the entire application's addressing space right off the top). However, it doesn't actually change the hard limit on the application's addressing space:</p><p><i>"Although this approach reduces virtual address consumption, it does not eliminate the 2 GB virtual address space limit that many applications are quickly approaching on their own. Eventually, applications will reach the limit for other reasons."</i></p><p>It's not clear from the article whether this change impacts existing applications, or is an memory managment enhancement for applications developed subsequent to this change. In order for this particular change to be effective, the application would have to allocate "unlocked" video memory resources. From what I read, if the default is to allocate resources as locked, or if the application specifically allocates locked video resources, this enhancement to the memory manager would have no effect at all.</p>

[kjfett4]

Yeah, I edited down my post after I did more research on the IncreaseUserVa command. It looks like as long as devs limit the games to <2GB of VM use, having more than 3GB (2GB for the game, some for the Vcard, more for the OS and the overflow into the page file) is a waste....regardless of what OS..32 bit or 64 bit.. that you run. Heck, a 64bit vista with 4GB of RAM is no better off with this game than a 32bit with 3GB RAM. In both cases, the game will only use up to 2GB of VM and in the case of the 64Bit with 4GB RAM, most of that last 1GB is wasted on the MMIO. On the plus side, those maxed out on 3GB ram will know it will be a long while before the game devs decide to make the leap beyond that barrier as it will take an improvement in hardware and price drops....so they might actually get more thna 3 years out of a pc before being obsolete. lol

[SpirituSanctu]

<p>Ok, getting a little more technical than im afraid i can understand. I do to a point however. I dont expect that all 4 gig will be utalized, but as the last poster said, that if you have 3 gig, then you are prob set for a while.</p><p>My problem is that i would be SATISFIED with 3 gig. With all 4 gig installed im not even GETTING 3 gig, but rather just 2 gig. All 4 1 gig ram chips are dual channel, which i am told is not good to remove 1 and only have 3 which decreases performace etc. However even when i run on 3 gig windows sees 2250mb. I jsut want to see SOME increase on doubling my ram even if its a 20 percent increase, i cannot even get that.</p>

[Tebos]

<cite>SpirituSanctu wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Ok, getting a little more technical than im afraid i can understand. I do to a point however. I dont expect that all 4 gig will be utalized, but as the last poster said, that if you have 3 gig, then you are prob set for a while.</p><p>My problem is that i would be SATISFIED with 3 gig. With all 4 gig installed im not even GETTING 3 gig, but rather just 2 gig. All 4 1 gig ram chips are dual channel, which i am told is not good to remove 1 and only have 3 which decreases performace etc. However even when i run on 3 gig windows sees 2250mb. I jsut want to see SOME increase on doubling my ram even if its a 20 percent increase, i cannot even get that.</p></blockquote><p>This is a Windows 32-bit operating system limitation. In addition, the game application cannot address anymore then 2GB of RAM. Stick with the 4GB of RAM that you already purchased, which will allow the game to utilize as much of the physical 2GB application limitation as it can, while still having the remaining 800MB of RAM for Windows to operate from without having to perform pagefile operations.</p><p>32-bit based Linux operating systems does address the full 4GB of RAM.</p><p>64-bit operating systems will grant you the extra 1.2GB of RAM for Windows operations, but the game application is still limited to 2GB.</p>

[kjfett4]

OP, check this thread out... <a href="http://forums.microsoft.com/technet/showpost.aspx?postid=1272502&siteid=17&sb=0&d=1&at=7&ft=11&tf=0&pageid=1" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://forums.microsoft.com/technet...1&tf=0&pageid=1</a> Looks like what happens is that you reach a size in RAM that the OS blocks off part of the RAM for system resources to improve speed.

[kjfett4]

<cite> Tebos wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>SpirituSanctu wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Ok, getting a little more technical than im afraid i can understand. I do to a point however. I dont expect that all 4 gig will be utalized, but as the last poster said, that if you have 3 gig, then you are prob set for a while.</p><p>My problem is that i would be SATISFIED with 3 gig. With all 4 gig installed im not even GETTING 3 gig, but rather just 2 gig. All 4 1 gig ram chips are dual channel, which i am told is not good to remove 1 and only have 3 which decreases performace etc. However even when i run on 3 gig windows sees 2250mb. I jsut want to see SOME increase on doubling my ram even if its a 20 percent increase, i cannot even get that.</p></blockquote><p>This is a Windows 32-bit operating system limitation. In addition, the game application cannot address anymore then 2GB of RAM. Stick with the 4GB of RAM that you already purchased, which will allow the game to utilize as much of the physical 2GB application limitation as it can, while still having the remaining 800MB of RAM for Windows to operate from without having to perform pagefile operations.</p><p>32-bit based Linux operating systems does address the full 4GB of RAM.</p><p>64-bit operating systems will grant you the extra 1.2GB of RAM for Windows operations, but the game application is still limited to 2GB.</p></blockquote>Vista32 recognizes all 4GB of RAM.  It allocates 2GB to any one program and 2GB to the OS and it's resources.  The RAM is only part of the Virtual Memory available though and if you were to run 2 clients, it would allocate part of the RAM and part of the page file to both clients and the OS, with a cap of 2GB of Virtual Memory (a combination of RAM and page file) to each client.While I am sure there are many Linux fans out there that would love to gloat about that fact, reality is that most games are not written to make use of memory above 2GB so Linux doesn't run a game any better than Vista32 would unless the game was written to make use of that memory over 2GB and very few are...it's a nice feature for servers and server applications/databases though as they are most often designed to go up into that 2GB+ range. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />Vista64 doesn't cap the game applications at 2GB.  That is the problem with Vista32.  The problem that Vista64 runs in to is that a vast majority of games are not written to make use of memory over 2GB...so the fact that Vista64 can read over 2GB...as in the case of Linux, just doesn't matter except in the rarest cases.  Also, if you would read the article in Post 2, you wuld see that the vast majority of RAM between 3GB and 4GB is used up by the MMIO..meaning a Vista64 system with 4GB of RAM might have 3.2GB of available RAM and would not see a full 4GB of RAM to use until it could get at least 5GB of RAM onto the Mobo in some fashion.  As the MMIO came before windows, it is likely an issue Linux has to deal with as well, but as I am not an expert on Linux, I'll leave that for others to discuss.