Vista 32Bit, 4Gb?

Hello,
I am a bit confused and curious. I do not consider me a "noob", but I have this question:

I just bought an ASUS X57Vn with 4Gb memory, and 32-bit Vista. I have never had a computer with this much memory before, and I have read a lot about 32-bit not being able to "see" all memory.

Now I am curious: When I look at the properties for my computer, I see "4Gb aviable". I don't know how Vista does things but back in them olden days an operating system that could not see all the RAM usually did not display more than it could see. If Vista cannot see all my RAM, why does it, indeed, see all my RAM?

 

Answer:

A 32bit OS can address up to 4gb of ram, just usually around 1gb of that memorry address space is held or reserved for system use & devices.

So Windows always showed you how much memory was "left" or "avalible" for use. So if you had 4gb installed and your system reserved 800mb you would see 3.2gb of ram avalible.

However Vista in SP1 for some reason decided to change how it notifys you and now instead of showing "avalible" ram it will show you the entire amount of ram installed or the amout addressed more accuratly including what the system is using, even though its not actually usable by your programs

It was a bad move in my opinion but MS probably did this because there are so many "OMG where is my 4gb of ram" questions. But now we will just see these kind of questions instead.

 

Thank you.

One more: So in other words, my computer actually uses the full 4Gb (if needed), contrary to a number of posts I have read over the years?

 

Yes, your computer uses all of it, but Vista just requires a certain amount to run, and 32 bit Vista only recognizes up to 3 GB. It would nearly be the same case if you were using 64 bit Vista, except 64 bit Vista can recognize up to 128GB of RAM I believe.

 

Wrong. You probably have SP1 installed, which can see the correct amount of RAM installed, but can use only 3.2GB-3.5GB of it.

 

What he said.

 

what I said lol, guess nobody understood it.

64bit gets past this by having more than 4gb address space and remaping system use to a higher address space thus freeing up all of the ram.

You still need 64bit to use it all, or PAE.

 

that's one thing win7 does right and should quickly get patched in vista, too (f.e. in sp2):

it states "your system has 4gb, 3.5gb usable" or similar. so it's clear

 

Mine is more newbie friendly.

 

All of you are only making me more confused again.

The first answer in this thread states (see quote) that Vista 32bit can address up to 4Gb RAM.

Then I get this answer from Silas: "Wrong. You probably have SP1 installed, which can see the correct amount of RAM installed, but can use only 3.2GB-3.5GB of it."

To me that is two different answers, maybe because I am not clear about what I am after...?
I just want to know how much memory is used period, including Vista itself and devices etc. If I read the first answer in this thread it sounds like 4Gb.
I don't care if it is 3.x or 3.y Gb left after Vista is started that actually can be used by other things.

Again:
Can Vista address 4Gb?
Does Vista lock x Gb for itself from those 4Gb?

If this is true then we are all talking about the same thing, but in different ways.

 

I am correct. A 32-bit OS can NOT utilize 4 GB of RAM, Vista or not.

Windows Vista 64-bit can.
Windows Vista 32-bit can not.

 

Your wrong, word for word I explained it.

32bit an address up to 4gb of ram but part of that is reserved for the system leaving you with a smaller amount as available.

I really tried word for word even used quotes to strengthen and emphasize the difference between addressed space and used space.

You need to go read some tech docs if you do not understand if you do not just want to take my word for it.

 

You, kind sir, are right. I should have used the word "utilize" instead of "address". I just hope I didn't hurt your feelings.

 

And what about 64 bit with 8 gb of ram. Till now because of the chipset limitations, it only utilizes 6.x gb of ram. Correct me?

 

64bit can handle hundreds of gb of ram, the limitaion of your chipset will depend on your chipset. There are already numerous models out there than can use 8gb of ram. What you gain in having that though is a different question all together.

 

We are getting off topic. Basically, to answer the guy's question, Vista 32 bit technically can't "use" all the memory. It only uses about 3.2GB. And there are other limits. You will know when you are running out of memory when Vista starts spitting low memory dialogs at you. Otherwise, no worries.

 

all right. Thanks for correcting me.

 

Heh, thank you.
Not that I think that will really be an issue; I seldom run more than 2-3 programs at once including things like Skype...

Edit: Doing some more research it seems that Vista 32bit, just like XP 32bit splits the RAM anyway, allocating the lower 2Gb for apps and the top 1-2Gb (depending on chipset etc, it seems) for the OS, with a few exceptions (apps specifically coded to handle 4Gb of memory or more, like SQL server and a few others).
If this is the case, then I don't really see a problem, since the 1.5Gb Vista has all to itself would still help immensely compared to forcing it to share 2Gb with the apps.

 

Hey Vicious, I hope you can help me clarify.
With the leftover of about 1gb ram reserved for system use & devices. Does this mean that your computer as a whole will still be (potentially) utilizing 4gb of RAM, and that it's just the OS (Vista), that will be utilizing 3.x gb of it?

 

Not technically. Keep in mind 4GB of address space is available. It like you have a set of telephone numbers. Not every telephone number is attached to a house. Some are to cellphones. Some numbers are for pagers, etc etc.

In the same way, you have 4gb of address space. However, programs need some way to talk to the PCI devices in your computer. So the OS has to set aside address that doesn't actually point to system memory, but rather to a PCI device.

That's the gist of it. Basically, not all 4gb of physical memory is being used for that reason.

 

Thats a good way to put it.

So to further that, you should google PAE witch is basically what happens in 64bit, you give the system some new "phone numbers" so windows can use the rest again.

A little known fact is that you can use 4gb + in 32bit but its a very advanced thing and I do not really recomend it.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc784574.aspx