4gb ram question

I just bought 2 sticks of 2gb ram and installed on my m1330.
it has windows 7 beta 32bit, in computer-> system it shows 4gb ram, cpu-z also say 4gb ram. but in taskmanager (ctrl+alt+spr) in the performance tab it says 35xx mb physical memory.

so my question is, did my windows recognize 4gb? or I must install 64bit windows?

another observation. when i have 2gb, idle uses about 500mb ram, and now with 4gb idle uses 700 mb is that normal?

thanx

 

32 bit OS will only see 3.5GB ram. You will need to install a 64 bit OS for the full 4 GB ram.

Some application does allocate more ram at start when it notice that you have more ram in the system, it is very normal.

 

i know that 32 bit os will only see 3.5gb, in xp "my computer"shows 3.5gb, but w7 shows 4 gb is that mean 32bit w7 support 4gb or there is no way a 32bit OS can support 4 gb

 

you need to upgrade to 64bit to see the full 4gb of ram.....
Vista tries its dest to fill empty system memory cache as soon as it can, as empty memory is wasted memory. As soon as your ram needs increase however, vista will release some of this memory

 

What you see in Computer -> System is only what the system can see, this has been fixed since Vista SP1. The number in Task Manager is the actual number that the system can use. If you need to <s>see</s> use the full 4 GB, you must go with 64-bit.

 

The 4GB shown is only an indication of the total of physical memory installed in your system. The usable amount is shown in the task manager. If you really want the 'full' 4GB of RAM then you must use 64 bit windows.

 

oook so I'm going to upgrade to 64bits so.
thanx all

 

Stewie made a key point here - since SP1 on Vista, the OS can see more than 3GB - it can only adress between 3-3.5GB (strangely depending on the system, but generally around 3GB).
Seeing and adressing are two very different things.

This may or may not be beneficial.
On my SZ the graphics card adresses the 1GB not adresses by the OS - i.e. hardware can adress the fourth GB.
There have been various discussions reagarding 32 and 64Bit before.

If you have 32Bit up and running and don't need 64Bit - stay with 32Bit.
If you instal froms scratch and don't need 64Bit - take your pick, but I suggest using the version with decent driver support.
(e.g. Sony on older models, e.g. SZ is horrid with 64Bit support - same went for the first FW - I use 32 Bit)

 

The reason you're not taking a ram beating with newer 1GB and up graphics cards is PAE (physical address extension), essentially the cpu is allowed to use 36 bit addressing for non system ram such as graphics cards etc, which allows somewhere around 10GB of address space IIRC. Unfortunately due to the way the 32bit OSs are coded there's no real usable way to address the system ram for use by apps without breaking all kinds of compatibility, so 32bit oses will never be able to address more than about 3.2 gb of ram usefully. Most 32 bit apps themselves are limited to only 2gb of physical address space anyways, so unless you're running 2-3 things at once more than 3.2gb shouldn't be all that necessary.

 

If 32 bit can only address around 3gb ram, what can i do with the one which can't address. does 8400gs use some turbo cache technology which can use that 1 gb or less as video memory?

i also read there are programas that conver that 1 gb ram into a "hard drive" so you can store some temp files and that can speedup the computer

 

turbocache is a flawed technology = rubbish. - go for the ramdisk

its called a ram drive and is a definate option, the are many freeware ramdisk softwares available.

 

My 8400GS has got 1GB of Video memory - the RAM adds to it.

I think my Intel x3100 uses it too

 

I think people are going to have to get serious with this 32 bit ordeal

In server 2003 standard edition 32 bit can read 4Gb
In server 2003 Enterprise Edition 32 bit can read 64Gb
In server 2003 Enterprise Edition 64 bit can read 2TB
In server 2003 Datacenter Edition 32 bit can read 128Gb
In server 2003 Datacenter Edition 64 bit can read 2TB
In server 2003 Web Edition 32 bit can read 2Gb

I know this from reading my server 2003 manual
The operating system really determines maximum memory recognition/support.

K-TRON

 

Superspeed's ramdisk plus can be used to turn memory above the OS limit into a ramdisk, probably a better use of the space than sharing with graphics.

 

so, better use that 1 gb os limit ram into ramdisk then sharing with graphics? what files do people store to ramdisk?

 

I used it for the windows swap file and IE/Firefox cache, if you use it for cache you lose the cache when you power down unless you save an image of the ramdisk each time, losing the cache though is actually more secure and speeds up subsequent page loads, the only downer is if you dont have a fast connection redownloading pictures etc that you hit frequently can slow things down.

 

what size should i set the ram drive, and how much space for windows swap files