A memory Question

[NSWGR_46Class]

I am in the process of rebuilding my trainz beast and was planning to use 2GB of ram but the mother board will support 4GB ram, will windows XP pro use 4GB ram or is it Limited at 2GB.

When picking up my new Laptop with vista on board we bench marked it starting from 1GB and then at 1.5GB and 2GB and found improvements in performance but from 2GB to 3GB there was no real improvements and Vista would not see any more ram over 3GB.

Will to spend the cash on 4GB but is it worth it.

Thanks
Dave
Bearcat245

 

[psycho_aussie]

32-bit Windows can use up to about 3.25Gb, but the x64 versions can use a lot more. Honestly, 3Gb is probably all you really need. that would give both Windows and Trainz some room to move around in, though 2Gb would also suffice.

Chris

 

[pommie]

No operating system is able to use the memory address allocation in the 3~4gig range as this is where the video ram allocation is addressed, this is the same type of small thinking that caused the 640k allocation
If you are not/can't go over 4gig then stop at 3gig, depending on the memory you could use 2x1gig+2x512meg, 3x1gig is possible but you cannot have dual channel therefore making it run slower.
If you use pc800 it only comes in 1 and 2gig so that would limit you to 2gig unless you are prepared to pay for 4gig and only have 3gig available.

Cheers David

Edit/ ps. Apple probably is different

 

[big_b]

No operating system is able to use the memory address allocation in the 3~4gig range as this is where the video ram allocation is addressed, this is the same type of small thinking that caused the 640k allocation
If you are not/can't go over 4gig then stop at 3gig, depending on the memory you could use 2x1gig+2x512meg, 3x1gig is possible but you cannot have dual channel therefore making it run slower.
If you use pc800 it only comes in 1 and 2gig so that would limit you to 2gig unless you are prepared to pay for 4gig and only have 3gig available.

Cheers David

Edit/ ps. Apple probably is different

512mb pc800
http://www.aussiepcshop.com/product_info.php/cPath/1_16_50/products_id/1454
dave

 

[NSWGR_46Class]

thanks

Think I will go to 2GB - thanks for the input = thats going to be double what old trainzbeast had so will be a vast improvement anyway.

 

[Mouse84]

You will definitely see an improvement going from 1 GB to 2 GB.

 

[JCitron]

The 64-bit version of the operating systems technically support 16 TB of RAM, but since most people can't afford this, most motherboards that handle 64-bit operating systems, will support only 4GB.

Because of the memory limit of the 32-bit operating system, and the fact that there are drivers that eat up the first MB along with the 640k of RAM as mentioned by Pommie, the total memory on a 32-bit system is only about 3GB. There is a utility that can be run to extend the supported memory up to 4GB, but its name escapes me now.

I am currently running the 64-bit Vista Ultimate on my home desktop with 4GB of RAM with no problems at all. I increased from 2GB, and the results are like night and day. The extra 2GB was a worthy investment.

At work I run Vista Business 32-bit, and on these systems I've installed the max of 3GB. I highly recommend this if the motherboard supports it. These systems started with 2GB, but couldn't get out of their own way. With the 3GB, the systems aren't that bad to work with.

The reason why I said if the motherboard supports it is because some motherboards require interleved memory for best performance. In order to interleve the high and low addresses, the memory has to be of the same type and speed. By putting in an odd set of memory, the performance is lost.

Bearcat, good luck on your new Trainz beast.

John

 

[johnwhelan]

The 64-bit version of the operating systems technically support 16 TB of RAM, but since most people can't afford this, most motherboards that handle 64-bit operating systems, will support only 4GB.

Because of the memory limit of the 32-bit operating system, and the fact that there are drivers that eat up the first MB along with the 640k of RAM as mentioned by Pommie, the total memory on a 32-bit system is only about 3GB. There is a utility that can be run to extend the supported memory up to 4GB, but its name escapes me now.

I am currently running the 64-bit Vista Ultimate on my home desktop with 4GB of RAM with no problems at all. I increased from 2GB, and the results are like night and day. The extra 2GB was a worthy investment.

At work I run Vista Business 32-bit, and on these systems I've installed the max of 3GB. I highly recommend this if the motherboard supports it. These systems started with 2GB, but couldn't get out of their own way. With the 3GB, the systems aren't that bad to work with.

The reason why I said if the motherboard supports it is because some motherboards require interleved memory for best performance. In order to interleve the high and low addresses, the memory has to be of the same type and speed. By putting in an odd set of memory, the performance is lost.

Bearcat, good luck on your new Trainz beast.

John

Many motherboards will now handle 8 gigs.

Cheerio John

 

[JCitron]

"Many motherboards will now handle 8 gigs."

Thanks John, this shows how fast technology is moving from the time I installed my motherboard 6 months ago!

John

 

[NSWGR_46Class]

Change of mind

I am going to go with 3GB as this will be the memory I wil have on hand for this project - 2 X 1 GB and 2 X 512MB.

Just to give you the full machine spec - the basic PC is a acer 5600G with 2.4Ghz intel Celeron Processor intel 865g chipset
DVD burner
added apg asus 8460 ultra 128mb video

OS Windows Vista home preimeum

1st hdd 80gb OS - Gmax
2nd hdd 40gb Trainz
3rd hdd 40gb copy of drive 3

I know this is not a stunning gaming computer but should run trainz ok, the cost of the project will be next to zero as using items I have on hand and parts sourced from IT at work. When doing trainz demos it has alway been my thinking to show trainz working on pretty much an average PC that you would find in the home. No use showing trainz runing on a super gaming beast when the average home user is not going to get that type of performance at home. This has worked so far for me.

Going to be building 2 of these side by side, the second one will be running XP pro and no dvd burner and only 2gb ram, - just cause I can and will have the parts.

 

[johnwhelan]

I am going to go with 3GB as this will be the memory I wil have on hand for this project - 2 X 1 GB and 2 X 512MB.

Just to give you the full machine spec - the basic PC is a acer 5600G with 2.4Ghz intel Celeron Processor intel 865g chipset
DVD burner
added apg asus 8460 ultra 128mb video

OS Windows Vista home preimeum

1st hdd 80gb OS - Gmax
2nd hdd 40gb Trainz
3rd hdd 40gb copy of drive 3

I know this is not a stunning gaming computer but should run trainz ok, the cost of the project will be next to zero as using items I have on hand and parts sourced from IT at work. When doing trainz demos it has alway been my thinking to show trainz working on pretty much an average PC that you would find in the home. No use showing trainz runing on a super gaming beast when the average home user is not going to get that type of performance at home. This has worked so far for me.

Going to be building 2 of these side by side, the second one will be running XP pro and no dvd burner and only 2gb ram, - just cause I can and will have the parts.

If you possibly can replace the cpu with a P4. Basically the Celeron has little L2 cache and it impacts the performance. You'll need to check exactly which Celeron processor you have and then look up its performance on tomshardware.com and see which cpus your motherboard will take. It may be restricted to Northwood cores which drew less power than the Prescott ones. Do your home work, my machine is running a Northwood 2.4 and the performance is quite respectable. Mind you it does have XP, 2 gigs of memory and an ATI 850 xt pe video card.

Cheerio John

 

[NSWGR_46Class]

Thanks John will look into this the Acer PC's might in fact have a P4 chip on board, they being given to me as ex lease - ex Government machines and it is a bit of a stab in the dark to whats in the case. They are coming to me as its cheaper to give them away, than pay the cost of $30 per unit tax, local govenment puts on a PC's to go into land fill, a monitor also costs $30 each either CRT or LCD.

I have been given the orginal spec's as installed by the lease company but who knows what has been done to them since in the last 2 years, they will be given a health check and if that pass have there hdd repartitoned and then passed over to me.

 

[NSWGR_46Class]

an update

I am working from home for the rest of this week ... or should that be working from the rest home for a week, but just been on to the IT guys at work and they tell me that they should be able to give me some pent 3Ghz chips to suit the acers, they tell me that the pent 4 chips that were removed form some of the dell gx270's when they died due to bios faults, seems to be a common fault with them, should fit the Acer Machines... Yippie