I've been reading about memory limits on Windows XP (32-Bit version) and read that the total amount of memory it can see is 3 Gigabytes (even if you have 4 Gigabytes of memory installed) but my query is about what someone told me but I don't know if it's true or not? I have 4GB of DDR2 800 Ram (four 1GB sticks) and a GTX 275 Graphics Card with 896 MB of memory, and I was told that XP can only see and use a total of 3GB of memory (and no more!) so it would see the 3GB of physical memory out of the 4GB but because it would also see the 896 megabytes of memory on the graphics card it would take the 896 megabytes off the 3GB (3072 Megabytes) so the total usable physical memory available to my computer would only be 2180 Megabytes leaving almost 2 gigabytes of memory just sitting there doing nothing, is that true? I'd appreciate some info on that. Thank you.
No the 896MB is dedicated graphics memory that the system can't utilise other than for graphics processes. So the system will use the 3GB of ram out of the 4GB. In most cases a 32-bit system will use about 3.4 to 3.5GB of the 4GB. I hope this helps.
Agreed. That is why people prefer to jump ship to a 64-bit OS like Win7 64-bit RC and get Win7 official when it comes out. Also, it's more than just RAM, it has other advantage too. Your system on your signature is more than Win7 needs to run, therefore will run really superbly. I would and am avoiding XP at all cost. I mean when was the last time I help someone with XP since Vista release? XP is too problematic.
Here's something I posted on another forum a while ago. Also speaks about PAE, didn't remove that part.
+1 mm vr. Also to add, XP has a per application limit of 2GB. An application can't consume more then 2GB of system memory, this issue is not there under Vista/Win7 64-bit.
