Need to upgrade to 6gb but have Vista32

[ajn03001]

I built a comp to play 5 instances of World of Warcraft.
Q6600 Stock
8800GT 512MB
3GB DDR2 533
300GB SATA2

Thing is, running 5 lags horribly. It takes 5 minutes to login, and after that I get unacceptable frame rates. Looking at task/resource monitor, CPU usage is 59%, so there's no need to OC yet. However, the memory usage is near max, ~2.8 MB. Graphics are fine, as no matter what settings max/high/low the sort of lag is identical. So right now I'm positive that I need to get more ram. WoW uses about a gig of ram per instance, plus vista uses about 600 MB so 5X1GB + 600MB ~ I need 6GB. I think this will solve the problem.
Could it be anything else? The HDD for instance?

But before I purchase I have a few questions. Does windows vista 32bit allow the USE of 6GB of memory? I read posts but am not clear whether 32bit OS's just don't SHOW larger than 3GB (patch fixable) or if >3GB ram has no effect at all. If so, then obviously I need to 'upgrade' to a 64 bit OS. If I need to do that, which is better for me - Windows XP 64bit, or Windows Vista 64?

I have another question. Would I also be better off getting additional hard drives for the instances to run separately instead of off one drive like now? I don't know much about hard drive configurations, but I hear about them. What would be the best option if I also wanted to go buy more hardrives, in terms of its configuration?

Thanks

 

[Rebel44]

If you already have Vista 32bit you can either order 64bit disc from MS for +- 10 USD or get 64bit disc (from friend or ISO from torrent) and use your Product key to activate.

32bit OS is not able to use more then +- 3.5GB RAM depending on your HW (unless you are using PAE but you may have serious stability/ drivers problems with PAE).

My advice - go for 64bit Vista.

 

[Quiksilver]

O.O 6GB's? 3x 2GB sticks?, Why not go 4x 2Gb sticks :< So all 4 sticks will run dual channel rather than just the first 2, let alone some mobo's won't even boot with 3 sticks.

 

[ajn03001]

Wow, good thing I asked. I didn't know I could use my existing key to free-upgrade to vista 64. And Quiksilver, yeah, I thought about it and 4x 2GB will be better. Great help folks.

 

[n7]

4x2 GB + Vista x64 should solve the issues.

Individual HDDs shouldn't be necessary, but it's hard to say on that one without trying it.

 

[Nothinman]

But before I purchase I have a few questions. Does windows vista 32bit allow the USE of 6GB of memory? I read posts but am not clear whether 32bit OS's just don't SHOW larger than 3GB (patch fixable) or if >3GB ram has no effect at all. If so, then obviously I need to 'upgrade' to a 64 bit OS. If I need to do that, which is better for me - Windows XP 64bit, or Windows Vista 64?

Sure some 32-bit OSes can use 6G of memory, just not those that are Windows clients.

32bit OS is not able to use more then +- 3.5GB RAM depending on your HW (unless you are using PAE but you may have serious stability/ drivers problems with PAE).

Enabling PAE in 32-bit client versions of Windows only gets you NX anyway. MS has intentionally crippled them at the 4G mark.

I have another question. Would I also be better off getting additional hard drives for the instances to run separately instead of off one drive like now? I don't know much about hard drive configurations, but I hear about them. What would be the best option if I also wanted to go buy more hardrives, in terms of its configuration?

Depends on how much the individual instances of WoW are competing with each other for I/O time to load things.

 

[Mondoman]

ajn- you also need to verify that your mothboard's BIOS has a "memory remapping" function that will allow you to access more than 4GB of RAM.
You may also want to consider building additional computers and controlling all from a single display/keyboard/mouse using a KVM switch or software system.

 

[Nothinman]

ajn- you also need to verify that your mothboard's BIOS has a "memory remapping" function that will allow you to access more than 4GB of RAM.
You may also want to consider building additional computers and controlling all from a single display/keyboard/mouse using a KVM switch or software system.

The memory remapping function just lets you access the addresses lost to hardware I/O ranges. So if the BIOS doesn't support remapping he'll end up with 6G minus the range stolen by his hardware.

 

[Mondoman]

N - Will 64-bit Windows be happy with a memory hole in the middle of RAM (as caused by a lack of a memory remapping function in the BIOS)? I had assumed that RAM had to be in one contiguous block for Windows.

 

[Nothinman]

If you look at your BIOSes e820 table there's likely already some ranges reserved in the middle of the map for old ISA stuff so Windows already has to deal with that and I would assume the memory hole at the 4G mark would be treated the same.