RAM Theory? Maximum RAM usable by Windows OS's?

[jeffgson]

Its really time to upgrade my computer. I was looking at a Mach Speed N2PAP motherboard with an Athlon 2400+ CPU, and 780 MB of DDR RAM. Talking about it with someone, they told me that unless I upgrade my OS from Windows ME to Windows XP, I can't get the full benefit of that much RAM. Not giving me a reason, they say that at the local computer show a "memory expert" tells him that Windows 2K and ME can only maximize the efficiency of a portion of that much RAM, and that I should install less or change to Windows XP (which I tried and didn't like).

Is this a total hoax, or is there truth hidden here somewhere? The peson who related this to me said it was known as "the RAM theory".😕

 

[Nothinman]

WinME (and all Win9X OSes) suck at memory management and anything over 512 is generally considered wastefull. Frankly those OSes should die, their time has come and gone.

Anything in the NT family, including Win2K and XP (which are NT 5.0 and 5.1 respectively) handle lots of memory just fine. How much is determined but how much you pay MS, I think 4G is the limit for the Pro and Home editions of NT, might be 2G but chances are you won't have over 2G of memory. The absolute most they can handle right now is 64G because of limits of the hardware which 64-bit systems remove and there's reasons why anything over 2G (or 3G in some cases) won't help you but I doubt you want a lecture on VM OS semantics =)

 

[HalfCrazy]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
WinME (and all Win9X OSes) suck at memory management and anything over 512 is generally considered wastefull. Frankly those OSes should die, their time has come and gone.

Does that mean my old 66Mhz stone tablet computer running Windows 3.11. Got to die too? 😛 😀

 

[Nothinman]

Nope, put Linux on it and it'll be fine.

 

[NogginBoink]

All flavors of WinNT, Win2K, WinXP, and W2K3, with the exception of W2K3 Web Server Edition, support at least 4GB, which is the maximum amount of RAM that can be addressed with the i386 architecture's 32 bit address bus.

W2K Advanced Server, W2K datacenter server, and the W2K3 counterparts, support more than that through AWE, or Address Windowing Extensions, which requires specially written software to use that much RAM. Only super high end server products even think about implementing those features.

The 64 bit OSes support insane amounts of physical RAM... more than MS can test, because no manufacturer has built a mobo capable of holding that much RAM. (To the best of my knowledge.)

 

[Jeff7181]

Windows NT and XP can access 4 GB of RAM, but they're limited to 2 GB per process. So one application can only use 2 GB, but you can run multiple applications that use up to 4 GB.
Since the Athlon-64 is probably the only 64 bit processor you'll use in the next 2-3 years, I'll explain how that works =)

The Athlon-64 has a 40 bit memory address, not 64... so it's limited to addressing 137 GB of RAM, not the insanely high amount for a processor with a 64 bit memory address.

If you're still using a 32 bit OS, the same limitations apply.

If you're using a 64 bit OS, and applications compiled for a 32 bit OS, each process will be limited to 4 GB, but the OS can use more, so you could run multiple processes each using 4 GB of RAM... as long as the application is aware that it can use the full 4 GB

If you're using a 64 bit OS and 64 bit applications, applications are capable of using more than 4 GB of RAM.

The Athlon-64 is capable of 64 bit memory addressability, but it was limited to 40 bits for demand reasons... there's nothing out there that needs 137 GB of RAM, and there won't be anytime soon, and when there is, AMD can build in a 64 bit memory address instead of 40.

 

[Genesys]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
Windows NT and XP can access 4 GB of RAM, but they're limited to 2 GB per process. So one application can only use 2 GB, but you can run multiple applications that use up to 4 GB.
Since the Athlon-64 is probably the only 64 bit processor you'll use in the next 2-3 years, I'll explain how that works =)

The Athlon-64 has a 40 bit memory address, not 64... so it's limited to addressing 137 GB of RAM, not the insanely high amount for a processor with a 64 bit memory address.

If you're still using a 32 bit OS, the same limitations apply.

If you're using a 64 bit OS, and applications compiled for a 32 bit OS, each process will be limited to 4 GB, but the OS can use more, so you could run multiple processes each using 4 GB of RAM... as long as the application is aware that it can use the full 4 GB

If you're using a 64 bit OS and 64 bit applications, applications are capable of using more than 4 GB of RAM.

The Athlon-64 is capable of 64 bit memory addressability, but it was limited to 40 bits for demand reasons... there's nothing out there that needs 137 GB of RAM, and there won't be anytime soon, and when there is, AMD can build in a 64 bit memory address instead of 40.

i aim to be using an Itanium 2 pretty soon 😀

 

[drag]

Intanium? blah....

Well, it would be better then what I have.


RAM is interesting. When I switched from Win98 to Linux I was shocked to see something (well not "shocked" but concerned).

Using Win98 I trained my self to have as little running as possible. I wanted to have as little used RAM as possible. So when I ran quake 1 (couldn't handle quake2) I'd get as much performance as possible. Then when it get up to about 60-80% usage when nothing was going on then I'd know it was time to reboot since the memory leaks have caught up to me. ( I had 96 Megs of RAM)

Then when I switched to linux. I did the same thing. I figured that I'd keep the install as minimal as possible. No more memory leaks for me, no-sir-yee.

So after using it for a bit, I quit out of X and turned everything off and looked at RAM usage. 80% usage. WTF?

I looked up all the proccesses listed as running and all them seem to be needed, but still it was running at 70% usage.

Well I looked it up and learned something interesting things about RAM.

Unused RAM is wasted RAM.

Memory leaks like what win98 suffered from was something else, this was just crap built up in RAM that couldn't be used for anything and win98 was to stupid to delete.

Each program you use, a large part of it is based on libraries and programs that are used by a bunch of other programs.

Why should the OS delete that out of RAM since the next program you use you will just have to load it up again?

Then why should it remove ANYTHING from RAM? Well because if you run out RAM then there will be no more space for anything else, of course (which is what happens in win9x then they crash.)

So, the BEST thing to do is to load everything and keep it there until you need the space, then just write over it, right? Usually. BUT:

Some applications use streaming data. Like a music file, you read it once and then it goes away until you play that song. So you don't need to keep that stuff up in RAM and you should remove it as quickly as possible so that you can have the space for something more imporant and you don't overwrite something that may be needed in the next millasecond.

However the computer can't just automagicly tell what bit of memory is from a music file or a program file or a library. It's all just ones and zeros. NO way to tell reliably unless the programmer of the program that uses it was smart enough to have a way to go: "Save this bit I'll need it later" or "Use this once and remove it". Which also would have the side effect of making that program harder to port and use on different OSes and stuff. So you want to keep as much of that in the kernel as possible to make the job simpler for programmers to make fast programs.

So you have memory managment. One way that a kernel (just for illistration purposes) does it is to assign a value to a a block of RAM.

Maybe a number "5" for instance. So that each 10 clock ticks it may go down one number in value. Tick 5, tick 4, tick 3.... ect. So that when it hits 0 then it can automaticly be written over if you need more space. However if the computer reads from that block of RAM then it resets it back up to 5, and then count starts over.

That way often-used parts get kept and unused parts get marked to be overwritten.

then you could create a simple command that a programmer can use that says: When you use this give it a value of zero. So that a clever programmer can help out a kernel to be efficient, but then can be easily ported to another OS using a different memory managment sceme were that means something similar, but different, or just ignored altogether.

There are lots off different tricks and algorithms designers use to create good memory managment scemes. Maybe you could make the blocks of RAM smaller for more fine control, but that would increase overhead. Or maybe add 2 or 3 different numbers to represent different values, which may increase performance or make it easier or harder for programmers or make more overhead or whatever. And a bunch of other stuff that is way over my head.

Win9x doesn't realy do any of those things. It was designed to run on as little RAM as possible. So probably it's memory management is closer to "GET THE F* OUT OF MY RAM IF I DON'T NEED YOU RIGHT NOW, sure go and hang out in the swap file if you must". So fundamentally win98 CAN use more ram then 512Megs, but can it properly utilize it? Nope.

Can it properly utilize other parts (fast CPU, memory bandwidth, high speed disks, and fast vid cards) of a high-performance computer as much as a modern OS? Nope. Win95 (between memory leaks and reboots) may scream on a 80MHZ machine with 16 megs of RAM were WinXP or Linux would run like a dog thru deep mud with it's legs cut off, but it doesn't mean that Win95 is faster on a 2.0Ghz machine with 1536 Megs of RAM. It would probably be quite a bit slower then a stripped down Linux or WinXP setup. The same thing with win98 or winME, or Linux kernels 1.whatever or 2.0 or even 2.2.

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: Genesys

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
Windows NT and XP can access 4 GB of RAM, but they're limited to 2 GB per process. So one application can only use 2 GB, but you can run multiple applications that use up to 4 GB.
Since the Athlon-64 is probably the only 64 bit processor you'll use in the next 2-3 years, I'll explain how that works =)

The Athlon-64 has a 40 bit memory address, not 64... so it's limited to addressing 137 GB of RAM, not the insanely high amount for a processor with a 64 bit memory address.

If you're still using a 32 bit OS, the same limitations apply.

If you're using a 64 bit OS, and applications compiled for a 32 bit OS, each process will be limited to 4 GB, but the OS can use more, so you could run multiple processes each using 4 GB of RAM... as long as the application is aware that it can use the full 4 GB

If you're using a 64 bit OS and 64 bit applications, applications are capable of using more than 4 GB of RAM.

The Athlon-64 is capable of 64 bit memory addressability, but it was limited to 40 bits for demand reasons... there's nothing out there that needs 137 GB of RAM, and there won't be anytime soon, and when there is, AMD can build in a 64 bit memory address instead of 40.

i aim to be using an Itanium 2 pretty soon 😀

I don't see how that relates to my statement that you put in bold...

 

[jeffgson]

Then here's the followup question - does Win 2K have the System Restore feature? I've used Win NT and know that it does not, and using Win XP is something I very much wish to avoid. I chose Win ME over Win NT for the single reason of having System Restore.

 

[Nothinman]

i aim to be using an Itanium 2 pretty soon

Itanium sucks, there's a reason it's not catching on anywhere.

And Win2K does not have System Restore.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

i aim to be using an Itanium 2 pretty soon

Itanium sucks, there's a reason it's not catching on anywhere.

And Win2K does not have System Restore.

Yep. Go out and buy a SMP AMD 64-bit machine a couple gig of ram and a copy of SuSE Pro 64-bit version and get tomorrow's technology today. 😛

 

[Jeff7181]

I'm curious where the Itanium came from... did an Intel junkie just feel the need to bring Intel into the dicussion?

 

[Nothinman]

I'm curious where the Itanium came from... did an Intel junkie just feel the need to bring Intel into the dicussion?

Itanium is Intel's 64-bit offering, it's not like it's not relevant.

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

I'm curious where the Itanium came from... did an Intel junkie just feel the need to bring Intel into the dicussion?

Itanium is Intel's 64-bit offering, it's not like it's not relevant.

See my last post... I don't understand... the Itanium can't run ANY 32-bit applications worth beans, so I don't see how that reply to my bolded statement means anything.

 

[Nothinman]

See my last post... I don't understand... the Itanium can't run ANY 32-bit applications worth beans, so I don't see how that reply to my bolded statement means anything.

But it runs them at like P200 speeds. As for the bold, I dunno.

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

See my last post... I don't understand... the Itanium can't run ANY 32-bit applications worth beans, so I don't see how that reply to my bolded statement means anything.

But it runs them at like P200 speeds. As for the bold, I dunno.

😕

 

[manly]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
I'm curious where the Itanium came from... did an Intel junkie just feel the need to bring Intel into the dicussion?

EPIC was originally developed by HP, but Intel essentially bought them out.

If IA64 doesn't catch on, Intel will probably still have the market share, resources and time to push x86-64 (assuming it's fit to compete against UNIX big iron).

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: manly

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
I'm curious where the Itanium came from... did an Intel junkie just feel the need to bring Intel into the dicussion?

EPIC was originally developed by HP, but Intel essentially bought them out.

If IA64 doesn't catch on, Intel will probably still have the market share, resources and time to push x86-64 (assuming it's fit to compete against UNIX big iron).

I don't think you understood my question... I was wondering how the Itanium was brought into this conversation since the person's reply to my statement that he/she bolded has nothing to do with the bolded statement.

 

[manly]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181

Originally posted by: manly

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
I'm curious where the Itanium came from... did an Intel junkie just feel the need to bring Intel into the dicussion?

EPIC was originally developed by HP, but Intel essentially bought them out.

If IA64 doesn't catch on, Intel will probably still have the market share, resources and time to push x86-64 (assuming it's fit to compete against UNIX big iron).

I don't think you understood my question... I was wondering how the Itanium was brought into this conversation since the person's reply to my statement that he/she bolded has nothing to do with the bolded statement.

😱

 

[Bloodstein]

Its really time to upgrade my computer. I was looking at a Mach Speed N2PAP motherboard with an Athlon 2400+ CPU, and 780 MB of DDR RAM. Talking about it with someone, they told me that unless I upgrade my OS from Windows ME to Windows XP, I can't get the full benefit of that much RAM. Not giving me a reason, they say that at the local computer show a "memory expert" tells him that Windows 2K and ME can only maximize the efficiency of a portion of that much RAM, and that I should install less or change to Windows XP (which I tried and didn't like).

Is this a total hoax, or is there truth hidden here somewhere? The peson who related this to me said it was known as "the RAM theory".

Hmm....really depends on ur usage. As someone pointed out...there is a limit the the no of addressable memory (=4G or something like dat). However, i dun believe the OS (linux, XP, SunOS, watever) constraints itself to any amount of memory. The reason is clear....its stupid. The OS is a general piece of software tailored to provide a number of services to an unknown set of programs. Why would an OS designer constraint themself to 512MB RAM for nothing. I haven't come across a single piece of algorithm thats optimised to work under X amount of RAM.

So the point is...if you do large amounts of video editing...or run a huge amount of processes at a time (a server would be an example), you would appreciate all the extra RAM. If all you do is check your email and use Word....then 128MB would already be too much..

 

[Nothinman]

Why would an OS designer constraint themself to 512MB RAM for nothing.

A) NT OSes do it to make you pay more to use more memory.
B) Win9X OSes were designed for 64-256M machines and there are certain things which don't benefit from more memory, like the global GDI pool.

 

[jeffgson]

Video editing is my main problem. Macromedia Fireworks sucks up tremendous quantities of system resources when you are performing calculations with many layers.

But recently, my resources are running low just from opening four or more seperate IE browser windows along with Outlook Express, and with streaming audio from an internet station coming down my cable line. At least that's what RSRCMTR.exe which is sitting in my systray tells me. At the moment its in the yellow (32% user, 32% system, and 44% GDI) available. And all I'm running is my streaming audio (Spinner), OE and IE, my antivirus program (Norton) and my software firewall (McAfee). Even closing OE and IE, the resourcemeter often goes into the red if I try working with Fireworks. My Duron 1300+ and 512 MB of SDRAM 133 doesn't seem to be enough.

 

[KF]

>Is this a total hoax,
Since no support for this is given here or anywhere, it is safe to assume that it is. If there were support, there would be something definite to point to.

> or is there truth hidden here somewhere?

You are supposed to put a setting in SYSTEM.INI to limit the size of the file cache, so that W9x does not use too much of the "system arena" to keep track of it when the total memory goes over 512M.

"... Vcache consumes all of the addresses in the system arena, leaving no virtual memory addresses"

"NOTE: The values for these settings are in kilobytes. 1024 kilobytes = 1 Megabytes
For example, if you want to create a 512-MB cache that cannot exceed 514-MB, the lines would be as follows:

[VCache]
MinFileCache=524288
MaxFileCache=526336"

MaxFileCache is the important one. Of course you could limit it to a lot less than that. This is not a memory limit, it is a cache limit.

About Vcache

 

[Nothinman]

Those resources are fixed and global in Win9X, I don't think there's anything you can do other than free some up by not running so many things. But if you move to something NT based the GDI resources will be per-process and the rest won't be applicable as the OS is designed differently and just generally works better.

Your hardware is fine, it's the OS that isn't good. If you don't like XP get Win2K, but realize that eventually you'll have to upgrade to XP or one of it's successors to do certain things. Even now Office2K3 won't run on Win9X/ME and there's no doubt once Longhorn is released many things will start to require it.