will Windows Vista allow more than 4gb of RAM?

[Dimkaumd]

Hi all,

As far as I understand, right now, users of windows cannot have more than 4gb of ram due to FAT32 restrictions. I was under the impression that windows VISTA will allow users to install a lot more RAM... was I misguided? Also will Vista take more advantage of 64bit CPUs??

Finally, Ive been reading about Windows Readyboost, and it seems really awesome, will it significantly speed up my computer if I have 2gb of RAM right now?
And can I download Readyboost to my XP Home Edition computer??

Thanks guys.

 

[Bobthelost]

You're half right, Vista 32 bit will not be able to use more than 4GB, Vista 64 will. That's the only real difference between 32 bit and 64 bit processing.

Readyboost? Must have missed that.

2GB might speed up your performance, but it depends on what you're up to. If you don't use more than 1GB of RAM now then adding another GB is pointless.

 

[Dimkaumd]

thanks bobthelost,
Do you know if Vista 64bit will be available same time as all the other vista's come out?

 

[Adul]

Originally posted by: Dimkaumd
thanks bobthelost,
Do you know if Vista 64bit will be available same time as all the other vista's come out?

yes it will be available at the same time.

 

[Crassus]

Dimkaumd, btw: FAT32 is a way for operating systems to partition a DISK. Has nothing to do with RAM. Any 32bit Operating System using a 32 bit operating mode on the CPU will be able to address 32 bit (in theory, in practice you will "see" less). Windows XP x64 already is not limited to that anymore.

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: Crassus
Dimkaumd, btw: FAT32 is a way for operating systems to partition a DISK. Has nothing to do with RAM. Any 32bit Operating System using a 32 bit operating mode on the CPU will be able to address 32 bit (in theory, in practice you will "see" less). Windows XP x64 already is not limited to that anymore.

To further complicate matters, some 32-bit Operating systems have extensions to let them see more than 4GB of RAM, but there is a lot of overhead involved with this.

 

[zest]

Vista 64 & XP64 .
No 32bit OS will see 4GB
I know that for a fact. Cos' I ran Vista Rc1 32 and it didn't see the 4gB.
I dont't know about Linux

 

[Pabster]

ReadyBoost ... meh. Even the speediest USB 2.0 keys are significantly slower than RAM.

 

[jlbenedict]

I'm running XP SP2 and Vista RC1 (both 32-bit)

Both show 3.25 GB of my 4GB of memory.
XP 64-bit back when I tried it, showed it all as well as Suse 10.x

 

[MrPickins]

Is this really important enough to warrant 3 threads?

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=33&threadid=1928331&enterthread=y

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=34&threadid=1928337&enterthread=y

Crossposting just spams up the forums. :thumbsdown: