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will Windows Vista allow more than 4gb of RAM?

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Dimkaumd

Senior member
Hi all,

As far as I understand, right now, users of windows cannot have more than 4gb of ram due to FAT32 restrictions. Anyone know the limit Vista64bit will have in terms of RAM?

Does anyone know the practical difference that vista 64bit will have over 32bit? Any application advantage etc?

Finally, Ive been reading about Windows Readyboost, and it seems really awesome,(plug in ur USB flash, and it acts as RAM) 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.
 
I don't think FAT would be the reason users may be limited to 4GB of ram (if they are limited to 4GB of ram). Plus no one uses FAT32 on their hard drives anymore.
 
I have my doubts about this ready boost thing. Aren't most USB flash sticks slower to read and write than current 7200 and 10,000 HDDs? In that case that would defeat the whole purpose of using them for swaping purposes.
 
32 bit versions of Windows are limited to 4GB of RAM, 64 bit is limited to 128GB of RAM.

FAT32 files are limited to 4GB, no limit on NTFS (well its like 16 exabytes or something crazy like that)

ReadyBoost is more about seek/access time than pure transfer speed, in that respect flash drives should be faster than hard drives. Not to mention flash drives are increasing in speed much quicker than hard drives are at this point. A couple years down the road ReadyBoost may show a lot better performance increase than it does today.

I haven't heard anything about adding ReadyBoost to XP.
 
Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
I don't think FAT would be the reason users may be limited to 4GB of ram (if they are limited to 4GB of ram). Plus no one uses FAT32 on their hard drives anymore.
Click to expand...

I still format to FAT32. The only advantage you get with NTFS is security. I've heard arguments that it's faster...maybe, but not enough to matter. My biggest concern, is if/when the the OS crashes, can I throw in a DOS boot cd or floppy and read/write/edit the contents of the drive, most importantly the system files. With NTFS it's a royal pain in the butt. FAT32, no prob.
 
The only advantage you get with NTFS is security. I've heard arguments that it's faster...maybe, but not enough to matter.
Click to expand...

And individual files >4G and built-in encryption and probably some other things I can't think of right now. Try creating a DVD ISO on a FAT filesystem.

My biggest concern, is if/when the the OS crashes, can I throw in a DOS boot cd or floppy and read/write/edit the contents of the drive, most importantly the system files. With NTFS it's a royal pain in the butt. FAT32, no prob.
Click to expand...

Get with the times, build a BartPE disc. There's also the option of using a Linux LiveCD since some of them include NTFS write support, but I don't know if I'd trust it.
 
Originally posted by: AMCRambler

I still format to FAT32. The only advantage you get with NTFS is security. I've heard arguments that it's faster...maybe, but not enough to matter. My biggest concern, is if/when the the OS crashes, can I throw in a DOS boot cd or floppy and read/write/edit the contents of the drive, most importantly the system files. With NTFS it's a royal pain in the butt. FAT32, no prob.
Click to expand...

The NTFS file system is self-healing. On FAT, if your comp crashes with files open, you will have to run shkdsk on boot-up. If you don't, all sorts of weird stuff can happen because FAT doesn't guarantee a stable state (e.g. wrong amount of free space reported, 'crosslinked' files, etc.) On NTFS, the data on the drive will automatically heal to a stable state which is guaranteed to work normally (whether you run chkdsk or not).

NTFS partitions contain backups of critical data. On FAT if you get a bad sector in a system area of the partition - that partition is toast. Pretty much nothing will be recoverable. On NTFS the backup will automatically be restored and no data lost.

No real limit to maximum file size - FAT is limited to 4 GB files. Work with large RAR files or lots of video, or DVD authoring files - and you'll soon be struggling with FAT.

A few security features - permissions, encryption, etc.

Other things - compression, large metadata records for each file (i.e. you can tag any file on NTFS with author, comments, etc.)

NTFS partitions don't have to be mounted as drive letters. E.g. you could install a new 400 GB drive and mount it as "C:\My Videos"

 
Originally posted by: AMCRambler
Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
I don't think FAT would be the reason users may be limited to 4GB of ram (if they are limited to 4GB of ram). Plus no one uses FAT32 on their hard drives anymore.
Click to expand...

I still format to FAT32. The only advantage you get with NTFS is security. I've heard arguments that it's faster...maybe, but not enough to matter. My biggest concern, is if/when the the OS crashes, can I throw in a DOS boot cd or floppy and read/write/edit the contents of the drive, most importantly the system files. With NTFS it's a royal pain in the butt. FAT32, no prob.
Click to expand...

I fix computers for a living and I've never had a problem with NTFS. FAT32 on the other hand...
 
Originally posted by: Dimkaumd
Hi all,

As far as I understand, right now, users of windows cannot have more than 4gb of ram due to FAT32 restrictions. Anyone know the limit Vista64bit will have in terms of RAM?

Does anyone know the practical difference that vista 64bit will have over 32bit? Any application advantage etc?

Finally, Ive been reading about Windows Readyboost, and it seems really awesome,(plug in ur USB flash, and it acts as RAM) 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.
Click to expand...
Vista does what Readyboost does.

And no, it is not a FAT32 restriction. I32 uses 32bit registers. 32bits translates to 4GB addressing. Therefore, the most efficient use of the hardware means limiting the size to 4GB. There are ways around it, but it means using 2 registers to hold an address of a location in memory. So, it is easier and more efficient on 32bit architecture to limit memory size to 4GB. In theory, 64-bit can address 2**64. NTFS is already designed that way and can theoretically address single files in the exabyte range (1024 terabytes). Nobody has built a drive to test it yet 😉.

 
I32 uses 32bit registers. 32bits translates to 4GB addressing.
Click to expand...

IA-32 has supported 36-bit addresses using PAE which allows up to 64G of physical memory since at least the Pentium Pro. Each process is still limited to 4G VM but the entire system can hold much more. There is a minor performance hit when enabling PAE but I really doubt anyone would notice except in artificial benchmarks. The real reason that XP can't see more than 4G of physical memory is because MS has artificially limited it to 4G for proof of this just look at Win2K3 Server 32-bit which can see up to 8G just fine and is based off the same core.
 
Originally posted by: AMCRambler
Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
I don't think FAT would be the reason users may be limited to 4GB of ram (if they are limited to 4GB of ram). Plus no one uses FAT32 on their hard drives anymore.
Click to expand...

I still format to FAT32. The only advantage you get with NTFS is security. I've heard arguments that it's faster...maybe, but not enough to matter. My biggest concern, is if/when the the OS crashes, can I throw in a DOS boot cd or floppy and read/write/edit the contents of the drive, most importantly the system files. With NTFS it's a royal pain in the butt. FAT32, no prob.
Click to expand...
I dont really want to join in the bashing but I have to tell you that you dont need floppy boot disks anymore.
You can boot off the Windows CD and get all the original tools and more.
And I never heard of a DOS boot CD, but I wont be foolish enough to state they dont exist.
 
Originally posted by: Nothinman
I32 uses 32bit registers. 32bits translates to 4GB addressing.
Click to expand...

IA-32 has supported 36-bit addresses using PAE which allows up to 64G of physical memory since at least the Pentium Pro. Each process is still limited to 4G VM but the entire system can hold much more. There is a minor performance hit when enabling PAE but I really doubt anyone would notice except in artificial benchmarks. The real reason that XP can't see more than 4G of physical memory is because MS has artificially limited it to 4G for proof of this just look at Win2K3 Server 32-bit which can see up to 8G just fine and is based off the same core.
Click to expand...
thx for the correction

 
Originally posted by: Noema
I have my doubts about this ready boost thing. Aren't most USB flash sticks slower to read and write than current 7200 and 10,000 HDDs? In that case that would defeat the whole purpose of using them for swaping purposes.
Click to expand...

Sustained transfers, flash drives are slower. Access times, flash drives can be quite a bit faster.

I would expect this to be more of a feature to laptop/desktop systems where the user has maxed out the number of slots, a business computer where they're not allowed to upgrade it themselves or a user who wouldn't know how to pop in a stick of RAM but can insert a flash drive.
 
And I never heard of a DOS boot CD, but I wont be foolish enough to state they dont exist.
Click to expand...

It's possible but it's a PITA to create them, you have to create a boot floppy to put on the disc and then load the DOS CD drivers to get access to the full CD.
 
Originally posted by: flashbacck
Originally posted by: clickynext
Why use readyboost when you can just install more ram?
Click to expand...

The flash isn't used as regular ram, it's used as a harddrive cache to speed up diskaccess.
Click to expand...

From my understanding, ReadyBoost is used as a faster access medium for paging. It's ReadyDrive that will help speed up disk access by using the flash memory on the upcoming hybrid hard drives.
 
Originally posted by: AMCRambler
Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
I don't think FAT would be the reason users may be limited to 4GB of ram (if they are limited to 4GB of ram). Plus no one uses FAT32 on their hard drives anymore.
Click to expand...

I still format to FAT32. The only advantage you get with NTFS is security. I've heard arguments that it's faster...maybe, but not enough to matter. My biggest concern, is if/when the the OS crashes, can I throw in a DOS boot cd or floppy and read/write/edit the contents of the drive, most importantly the system files. With NTFS it's a royal pain in the butt. FAT32, no prob.
Click to expand...

If you use NTFS it is much less likely that your partition will get corrupted in the first place. Also, you can use a linux live cd that can read/write NTFS, which would be a lot more useful than a dos boot floppy anyway.
 
Originally posted by: Nothinman
And I never heard of a DOS boot CD, but I wont be foolish enough to state they dont exist.
Click to expand...

It's possible but it's a PITA to create them, you have to create a boot floppy to put on the disc and then load the DOS CD drivers to get access to the full CD.
Click to expand...

Yeppers... Have the ISO of the one I created on our server somewhere. Even with networking.
 
Some points:
1) Wikipedia rocks! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vista (links to Readydrive and more)
2) I don't recommend using any current memory cards for boosting speeds. However, memory card speed will overtake hard drive speeds so this function will become more useful in the future.
3) 2GB of RAM is recommended for any serious gamer and/or multitasker but most will be happy with 1GB.
4) 4GB of RAM may actually slow down your PC slightly depending on your motherboard, other hardware and usage
5) future RAM will be non-volatile. It is expected that Windows will sit on non-volatile RAM. If non-volatile RAM can be made quick enough, it is likely that volatile RAM (needs power) will not be needed, especially in laptops where power usage is critical. (1GB of memory takes between 10 and 20 Watts, but is dropping due to smaller transistor sizes (DDR2 uses less power at higher speeds than DDR), however non-volatile RAM uses NO POWER except for when it is being accessed which would average to a tiny fraction of 1Watt)
6) Hard drives will be around a long time still and Hybrid will become common, but hard drives will switch to storage only and eventually will fade away.

Note, high-speed, non-volatile memory is the Holy Grail. Most computer speed annoyances are hard-drive related. Current dual-core CPU's only need about 1% of their raw power to be involved in full-speed hard drive transfers of 60MB/s.

It is hoped that carbon nano-tubes or similar technology can replace the hard drive and main memory. It is believed that current hard drive speeds (mainstream about 60MB/s) could improve by several hundred times. Every task on such a system will appear almost instantaneous with the exception of tasks like video and audio compression which depend primarily on the CPU.

*Note that 120X speed (which all agree will easily be achieved in non-volatile RAM) any task limited by the hard drive (like cold-boot, tranferring files, opening programs) that normally takes two minutes will take ONE SECOND. This also represents the time to transfer the contents of a full DVD-Video of approximately 7GB.

This is the near future, and one which Microsoft Vista is making software arrangements to utilize. It is uncertain when the hard drive replacement breakthrough will occur but this will be the most important breakthrough as annoying wait times will be eliminated almost entirely. (also, defragging will probably still be done despite not being necessary but you'll never see it)
 
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