Win9x/ME Ram limits and a little AGP to boot

[Slikkster]

While searching for something else, I ran across this interesting tidbit from The Register:

WinME and Win9x 512mb Ram limitation...and why that's so

 

[Barrak]

Good Read. Thanks for the link

 

[mastertech01]

I guess if you really need more ram that is a consideralble issue, but for most folks 512 is plenty.

 

[Dan]

Slikkster: Thanks for the link. I've known for a long time that the myth about Win9Z's inability to handle anything beyond 128MB is just that -- a myth. I didn't know about the 512MB limitation however.

As it happens I have 512MB RAM in my system. Fortunately I also have a dual boot: Win98SE and Win2K.

 

[BadThad]

I have discussed this at infinitum in these forums. {You just had to again, huh Slik, hehehehe.) I posted that the same day the reg issued it and did a TON of research on the topic. Here's what I learned:

1) MS contridicts itself in the knowledge base. Theoretically, the maximum limitation is 2 GB RAM for the 9x core (it can be found in the KB with a lot of tears). However, there are posts made to knowledge base essentially saying you can run into "issues" when you exceed 512MB. The is another article in the KB saying essentially the same thing at the 512 article, but it states "when exceeding 768MB RAM", no kidding.

2) The win9x VCACHE setting is the culprit. Appropriately, changing the VCACHE settings will let you run as much as you DARE.

3) There are users of this forum running nearly 1GB ram under the 9x core. Make a post and you'll see, just like I did.

I've been reading The Register daily for years now and I can tell you, those guys are SUPER WEAK when it comes to hardware. You also have to remember, they incorporate a bit of "tabloidism" into their "journalism".

 

[Slikkster]

This just proves I'm better at responding to posts than initiating them...LOL...I made the cardinal sin of posting without checking for previous posts on the subject. After reading your reply, BadThad, I did the archive search and found numerous posts on the subject. I did read Lord Evermore's lengthy reply to one of yours (informative), and also found the contradictory KB entries.

The Register article did mention the vcache workaround, however, so we'll give them credit for that much. It does stand to reason that one with a lot of memory should have a fairly high vcache setting in Win9x/ME, but to definitely avoid hitting the limit. Did you ever find a definitive response on AGP aperature size?

 

[BadThad]

ahhhh...AGP ap size, now that's another "can of worms", LOL.

You wouldn't believe all the contridictions in this area too. Ya, my conclusion is nobody really knows crap about how best to set it. There is lots of opinions made by good technical websites and by the people of this forum, all contridictory. Some say to set it to 256MB (www.geforcefaq.com), others say keep it low (16-32MB). My advice, determine the best setting on your own with some experimentation/benchmarking. For my system, well, I have 512MB and just went ahead and set it to 256MB.

If you have any revelations on AGP, Slik, I'd be glad to listen.

 

[nickdakick]

I'm with badthad here. After a lot of testing I've come to the conclusion(for myself) that setting it to half of the physical memory installed gives you the best performance. In my case that's 128 MB out of 256 MB.

 

[Slikkster]

Hey guys, from the "Unintended Consequences" file, I had a bit of good luck changing my AGP aperature size from 64mb (default) to 128mb as a test.

I've been having problems with my Promise Ultra 66 Controller after flashing to a newer bios. In both Win2k and Win98, a warm reboot would cause the controller to only detect the first of my two hard drives that were on it. Cold booting didn't have that issue; both hard drives would be detected. This caused me boot problems on Win2K, as it's boot partition is on the D: drive and I would get the "files not found" blah blah blah error because the D: drive wouldn't be detected. The only fix for this would be to sit at the pc and when the Promise Controller tried to detect after a warm boot, I'd have to ctrl-alt-del upon which both drives would be detected and I could continue booting. That's been a drag...

Well, I changed the AGP aperature to 128 and lo and behold, now after warm boots the controller sees both drives. I can't say for sure that this is a permanent fix, but I did 3 quick warm boots and it detected each time with a 128 aperature size. Who would've thunk it? I don't know why this happened, but I'm happy.

 

[BadThad]

Slik - LMFAO, hehehehehehehehehehehe.

Don't you love it when that happens?