Yes it is worth getting 4GB of Ram for Vista

[taltamir]

"all these games mentioned are 32-bit only, so they are going to run exactly the same on 64-bit and 32-bit OS and will both be able to use up to 2GB of RAM. " - actually that only limits them to 2GB of ram a peice... but if the game alone takes 2GB that means the OS and everything else needs to take 0... some games I have seen take about 1.8GB on 32bit mode, and actually go above 2.1GB for the game executeable itself.

There is also the fact that ram amount is a strawmen argument for 64bit. It is the least important issue. x86_64 brings more registers and capabilities compared to x86_32, and has a theoretical speed up for 3-5x the total speed. (thats 300 to 500% faster, or 400 to 600% of the initial speed). In some things it benchmarks the same, in 7z I benched it to be 27% faster on 64bit, and in firefox64bit it was several times the speed. And websites have been benching hash calculations as 2-4x faster depending on the individual hash algorithm. then there are things like ZFS that are totally impractical to run in 32bit mode.

Anyways, All those things are about the version of windows, not your ram amount. 4GB is more ram that 2GB on 64bit or 32bit machine, it just registers as 3.XGB on the 32bit machine, but it is still more that 2GB and can come in useful.

PS. please look up the definition of placebo.

 

[spacecowboy9891]

I am sure that I will upgrade to 64 bit sooner or later. I just really can't justify the ram yet. I guess when I want to have a game running in the background and then do stuff I might need the extra ram. However, considering the fact that ddr2 is dirt cheap nowdays I still might just pick up 2 more sticks.

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: taltamir
There is also the fact that ram amount is a strawmen argument for 64bit. It is the least important issue.

Orders of magnitude greater system memory is widely considered the most important issue, which is inclusive of but not limited to, physical and virtual host address space, and physical RAM.

and it appears to be about 3-5x times faster (its hard to measure, unlike the 7z which was an exact test) when loading a 64bit browser with a bunch (100+) of tabs preopened (saved sessions)... Oh, and those shut down significantly faster too...

Good to know. The next time I am opening new browser tabs at the direction of five other people looking over my shoulder who all want to use the internet at the same time using me as their proxy, I'll be sure to use 64-bit system. Because it sounds like 32-bit just won't cut the mustard if I ever happen to open more than 30 browser tabs for the first time after 15 years of internet usage behavior that is far above mainstream.

This argument is akin to trading in my current car for a street legal race car with 1000HP, on the off-chance I should ever take a wrong turn and find myself at the Christmas Tree of an NHRA drag race. It would totally suck if that happened but I only had 200HP. And I could objectively prove just how much 'faster' it would be. Again, on the highly practical assumption I should ever find myself accidentally competing in an NHRA drag race.

Let me put it this way, you are the extremely rare exception to the rule.

If the rule is based on the universe of frequent computer users, then you are the extremely rare exception, not him.

 

[taltamir]

Good to know. The next time I am opening new browser tabs at the direction of five other people looking over my shoulder who all want to use the internet at the same time using me as their proxy, I'll be sure to use 64-bit system. Because it sounds like 32-bit just won't cut the mustard if I ever happen to open more than 30 browser tabs for the first time after 15 years of internet usage behavior that is far above mainstream.

actually you have to use a 64bit BROWSER, running a 32bit browser on a 64bit system is the same speed...
http://www.mozilla-x86-64.com/

This argument is akin to trading in my current car for a street legal race car with 1000HP, on the off-chance I should ever take a wrong turn and find myself at the Christmas Tree of an NHRA drag race. It would totally suck if that happened but I only had 200HP. And I could objectively prove just how much 'faster' it would be. Again, on the highly practical assumption I should ever find myself accidentally competing in an NHRA drag race.

It is not for everyone, but I use it daily.

If the rule is based on the universe of frequent computer users, then you are the extremely rare exception, not him.

Universally speaking, almost every vista user benefits from going from 2gb to 4gb... being "fine" at 2GB is an extreme exception... a smaller exception is someone like me who needs 8GB...

Orders of magnitude greater system memory is widely considered the most important issue, which is inclusive of but not limited to, physical and virtual host address space, and physical RAM.

Only if you are out of it, and for most people 3.X is enough today. it will not be in the future, but it is today.

 

[OverVolt]

32-bit applications can not exceed 2Gb per process.

Go ahead and run intelliburn @ 2100mb memory usage with a 32-bit OS. It will insta-crash even if the memory is available. All 32-bit programs react the same.

Thus I run 32-bit Vista with 4Gb physical memory as I never plan on running 1.5Gb of programs in the background as I play my 32-bit games.

Good day.

 

[jjmIII]

4gb is $20-25

I said good day!

 

[BlueAcolyte]

Originally posted by: OverVolt
32-bit applications can not exceed 2Gb per process.

Go ahead and run intelliburn @ 2100mb memory usage with a 32-bit OS. It will insta-crash even if the memory is available. All 32-bit programs react the same.

Thus I run 32-bit Vista with 4Gb physical memory as I never plan on running 1.5Gb of programs in the background as I play my 32-bit games.

Good day.

Some games can use 3 or even 4GB of RAM because they are large-address-aware (an example is Supreme Commander with the community fix or its expansion pack)

Anyway, the increase from 2GB to 4GB was noticable.