Memory reduced

[rizvii]

I have 4 GB kingston ram on dual core 2 duo system. But when i check through xp it show only 3.24 GB . I have nvidia 8500 GT 512 MB graphic card as well. Can anyone tell me where is my rest of memory

[thymej]

This is normal behavior with a 32bit Windows OS. 4GB is the max amount of addressable space for 32bits. Since you have 4GBs, the hardware uses a small section of the addressable space (normally above the 3.2+GB mark) for hardware stuff and the motherboard and cards you install. There is not much you can do about it but to use a Windows 64bit OS.

[rizvii]

are there any particular requirement for 64 bit os. will games work on 64 bit

[thymej]

You will need a CPU that supports 64bit. Most modern CPU's do. Most modern games will run in Windows 64bit, sometimes a bit slower and almost never faster (google the game to find out). The number of bits don't necessarily make a program run faster, if the program is written in 64bit then you can move things around at 64bits at a time.

JUST remember, if you still have some old programs you still use, you will not be able to run 16bit programs anymore in Windows 64bit. They will have to be run in a VM running a 32bit OS. You will have to make sure there are 64bit drivers for all your hardware.

But with only 4GB of RAM there really is no need to go 64bit. Do a lot of reading, googleing, and researching about all the programs you currently use and will use before going 64bit. You can always just purchase another harddisk and install the Windows 64bit on it after removing your old one just in case you find things don't work the way you think they should.

[rallynavvie]

Yeah I doubt having that extra 512MB of memory is going to help your gaming much. That memory hole may be helping your PCI devices anyway so it might be helping.

[rizvii]

So are you suggesting that i should remove my 512 mb card. then how will the games work

[minidv2dvd]

the total memory addresses that a 32 bit o.s. can access is 4 GB. that includes all memory, including all add-in cards, bios chips, roms, etc....

so the total ram available to the o.s. is 4 GB minus all the other stuff. just your vid card is 1/2 a GB out of the total by itself. all the other cards and roms account for the other 1/4 GB. your total available ram is correct and fine.

not likely you will miss the other ram anyway. not many program use more than 3 GB of ram and if they did that's what the paging swap file is for.

[greymalkin]

greedy operating systems...didn't they tell us 640k is all we'd ever need?

[rallynavvie]

So are you suggesting that i should remove my 512 mb card. then how will the games work

No, I was talking about the RAM that wasn't showing up short of the full 4GB. You aren't going to miss that as much as you'd like to think you are.

[jagabo]

You can reduce the graphics card's aperture size in the BIOS if you need more memory (at the expense of lower graphics performance in games).