Ram use question

[poncherelli2]

I just built a machine with 2gb of corsair vs ram. When it was first up and running I ran the windows version of memtest and everything was fine. Since then I installed some updated drivers and SP2 for winxp. Now when I try and run it is says "your version of windows limits the ammount of memory a single program can allocate." I bought 2gb to help in games like bf2 and memory intensive applications, how can I make it so programs can allocate as much memory as they want? Thanks.

 

[Matthias99]

You can't. In 32-bit Windows, a single process is limited to accessing 2GB of combined real and virtual memory (the upper 2GB of the address space is used for system stuff). With a registry hack, you can raise this limit to 3GB/process (try the OS forum), and programs that support PAE can get around it as well.

If you just want to test the memory, use the boot-cd version of memtest86+.

 

[poncherelli2]

If a single process is limited to 2gb of combined memory, why will it only let memtest use up to 824mb? I just want to make sure BF2 or possibly photoshop will be able to access all 2gb if they need it, and since memtest isnt allowed to access all 2gb, im kinda worried that the others might not be able to.

 

[imported_Kensai]

Memtest86 can use all of it... It isn't ran in the OS environement.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: poncherelli2
If a single process is limited to 2gb of combined memory, why will it only let memtest use up to 824mb? I just want to make sure BF2 or possibly photoshop will be able to access all 2gb if they need it, and since memtest isnt allowed to access all 2gb, im kinda worried that the others might not be able to.

What program are you using to test the memory? The normal 'memtest86' runs before Windows even loads.

I wouldn't trust any memory tester that runs from within Windows, since it can't access all of the memory (this is a good thing, BTW; you wouldn't a virus or piece of spyware stomping all over your kernel).

 

[poncherelli2]

http://hcidesign.com/memtest/download.html is the windows version of memtest that will not let me use 2gb. However, when i first installed windows without SP2, it was letting me use all 2gb in memtest for windows.

 

[poncherelli2]

hmm, i still havent found anything regarding this.

 

[stevty2889]

I would use the real memtest that runs outside of windows. www.memtest.org

 

[poncherelli2]

I've run memtest and everything is fine. My issue is that at one point memtest was allowed to use all2gb, now its saying windows will not let one single program allocate that much ram. I dont care about the test itself, i'm concerned with the fact that windows isn't letting a program use all of my ram, when at one point, it did. I do not want this to happen in games or such where I wont know but performance will suffer because the program cant allocate all the memory it wants.