The person who sold you a computer with 32GB of RAM is gaining much more
from it than you ever will.

---
Leonard Grey
Errare humanum est

Scott Ehrlich wrote:
>
> "Ken Blake, MVP" wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 17:07:01 -0800, Scott Ehrlich <Scott
>> Ehrlich@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I have a new 32 GB quad-core PC that I plan to install WinXP 32-bit on.
>>> Since WinXP 32-bit only utilizes 4 GB RAM, will the remaining 28 GB be
>>> wasted, or can it somehow be utilized?
>>
>> It will be wasted. Actually everything over something around 3.1GB
>> will be wasted. All 32-bit versions of Windows (Vista as well as XP),
>> even though they have a 4GB address space, can only use *around* 3.1GB
>> of RAM. That's because some of that space is used by hardware and not
>> available to the operating system and applications. The amount you can
>> use varies, depending on what hardware you have installed, but is
>> usually around 3.1GB.
>>
>> However, note that even if 32-bit Windows *could* use that much RAM,
>> it's highly unlikely that your apps could make use of it. In fact,
>> even 3GB is substantially more than RAM than most people running
>> Windows XP can make effective use of. Chances are you would see no
>> performance difference between 1GB and 3GB, unless you do very
>> memory-hungry tasks, live editing large photographic images or videos.
>>
>> --
>> Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP Windows - Shell/User
>> Please Reply to the Newsgroup
>>
>
>
> What are the insights of adding /pae to the boot.ini? What does that truly
> buy me?
> From both the OS and application perspective, from programs such as matlab,
> mathematica, adobe acrobat, photoshop, etc?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Scott