is there a preformance hit in win32 for ram hotfix

[punyloony]

I was just wondering does anyone know whether there is a performance hit for ram over 2 gigs on a 32 bit system that has the hotfix to allow more ram.  I had to install it when I got hell gate London. I am not asking for tech support but rather information.

Edit: damn my disgraphia got me again in the title of the thread. I actually didnt need that hot part before the hotfix.

[datora]

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When you are the OP and you edit the first post that starts a topic, you can also edit the title.

Aside from that, WinXP SP3 32-bit can handle ~3.5 GB RAM ... at least, the PC3200 spec for 184-pin SDRAM DDR 400 for older desktops.  So, put in 4 GB and it will use as much as it can and ignore the rest.  No performance hit that I'm aware of.  The hotfix should only be necessary if you want to utilize over that ~3.5 GB.  If your system is configured reasonably well, that extra half gig probably won't make a difference, unless you're trying to configure with 6 or 8 GB.

As far as I know, a system such as I just described should not take a performance hit from the hotfix.  Other variations on that I can't speak to.  I'm running two systems like that right now that are configured with a 2 GB kit + 512 MB kit for total = 2560 MB  physical PC3200 SDRAM RAM running at 200.0 MHz & 2.5 volts.  If I happened to have a 1 GB kit, I would switch it for the 512 MB kit and get the totals up to 3 GB ... which is effectively all these old system could really use use.

What I did pay attention to, and don't know if you did, is the timings.  I got those matched perfectly, and had to go to some trouble to make that happen.  For 200 MHz, the motherboards I have only do auto-detect; I can't get in and manually force timings or overclock.  So, I had to swap kits around until one system matches both kits at 3-3-3-8-0 and the other system matches at 3-4-4-8-0.

At one point, the bank 1 memory of one system was 3-4-4-8-0 and the bank 2 on that system was 3-3-3-8-0 .. which resulted in "flaky" behavior (to get technical about it).  Random freezes and blue screens until I swapped & matched until timings were perfect match.


tl;dr version: No.  I don't think the hotfix is causing you issues, although your system specs might be different than my experience.  Make sure each bank is very closely matched DDR with a pair of chips that either actually are a kit or "effectively" are.  And, both banks should be as close as you can match them, identical timings are a Good Start.

If both banks together have 4 chips that form a single 4x kit, all the better.  Mismatched chips are usually a more likely cause of performance hit.

[punyloony]

I was just thinking that the reason on vista that it initially only detects less than a full 2 gigs is that the addressing for 32 bit OP SYS is insufficient to address all of the ram and that there is some long way of rendering the data that would reduce the performance. I am not too worried because when I upgraded to new ram I was looking more for higher performance than more space and was swapping out low end DDR2 for nicer DDR3. I noticed that  Vista detected 3.6 gigs because of the hotfix I had put on it. If I remember correctly the reson for the hotfix was instability due to games thinking there was 2gigs but 32bit OP SYS's dont detect all of that and cant use it especially on vista where vista has to address everything on its own without allowing the game to direct the addressing of data on ram. I just thought I would ask if this long addressing method that A 32bit OP SYS would use would screw performance.

Edit: just so those who dont know DDR2 and DDR3 have different slots and I had a motherboard that had slots for both so dont upgrade from DD2 to DD3 if you dont have the extra slots for DD3

[Bob2004]

You know, it would be really nice if you could try and use proper grammar and sentence structure, and try and explain your question clearly - it's really hard to work out exactly what you're talking about, which makes it really hard for anyone to try and answer you. Anyway...

Are you sure you mean the patch which allows 32-bit versions of Windows to address more memory? Because it sounds like you're talking about something completely different. 3.6GBs of memory is roughly what a 32-bit OS can address by default, so I don't think you have that patch installed (unless you have exactly 3.6GBs of RAM, which I doubt).

What it sounds like you're talking about is something totally different. By default, applications running under Windows can each only address up to 2GB of RAM - regardless of how much RAM you actually have, that is the maximum amount they can use (and it includes VRAM too, not just main memory).

However, there is a flag which can be set for an application at compile time (or I think is automatically set for every 64-bit executable) which makes that application "Large Address Aware". Basically, it allows that application to address more than 2GB of memory.

It is disabled by default, and most application developers don't usually enable it since most games don't need it, and it could, in theory, potentially cause compatibility problems. Occasionally some developers release a patch for their game enabling it - a recent example of this would be Skyrim, which initially lacked this feature, but after lots of people complained about not being able to make use of all their memory, had a update released to enable it.

I don't know if HellGate: London ever had a patch made containing that feature - frankly, I don't know why such an old game would need it, and I don't think anyone had more than 2GB of RAM back then anyway. But if that's what you're talking about, then it won't have any impact on any other applications at all - in terms of the amount of memory they can address, or in terms of performance.

[punyloony]

You know, it would be really nice if you could try and use proper grammar and sentence structure, and try and explain your question clearly - it's really hard to work out exactly what you're talking about, which makes it really hard for anyone to try and answer you. Anyway...

Are you sure you mean the patch which allows 32-bit versions of Windows to address more memory? Because it sounds like you're talking about something completely different. 3.6GBs of memory is roughly what a 32-bit OS can address by default, so I don't think you have that patch installed (unless you have exactly 3.6GBs of RAM, which I doubt).

What it sounds like you're talking about is something totally different. By default, applications running under Windows can each only address up to 2GB of RAM - regardless of how much RAM you actually have, that is the maximum amount they can use (and it includes VRAM too, not just main memory).

However, there is a flag which can be set for an application at compile time (or I think is automatically set for every 64-bit executable) which makes that application "Large Address Aware". Basically, it allows that application to address more than 2GB of memory.

It is disabled by default, and most application developers don't usually enable it since most games don't need it, and it could, in theory, potentially cause compatibility problems. Occasionally some developers release a patch for their game enabling it - a recent example of this would be Skyrim, which initially lacked this feature, but after lots of people complained about not being able to make use of all their memory, had a update released to enable it.

I don't know if HellGate: London ever had a patch made containing that feature - frankly, I don't know why such an old game would need it, and I don't think anyone had more than 2GB of RAM back then anyway. But if that's what you're talking about, then it won't have any impact on any other applications at all - in terms of the amount of memory they can address, or in terms of performance.

Unfutanatly looking in the windows specs display before the patch it only said I had 1.6gigs somthing when I had 2gigs. then when I used the patch I had a full 2gigs. then I got the smallist memory upgrade that I could find which was 4gigs and is said 3.6gigs in the same spec display. that is what I know.

[Pentium100]

Aside from that, WinXP SP3 32-bit can handle ~3.5 GB RAM ...  The hotfix should only be necessary if you want to utilize over that ~3.5 GB. 

There is a hotfix for XPSP3 32bit that allows it to use more than 3-3.5GB RAM? If so, where can I get it? I don't want to reinstall Windows to get a bit more RAM, but I would like a way to make the current Windows use all available memory.

Windows Server 2000 and 2003 32bit can access more than 4GB RAM using PAE, but XP (AFAIK) can't, even though it uses PAE to get DEP.

[punyloony]

Aside from that, WinXP SP3 32-bit can handle ~3.5 GB RAM ...  The hotfix should only be necessary if you want to utilize over that ~3.5 GB. 

There is a hotfix for XPSP3 32bit that allows it to use more than 3-3.5GB RAM? If so, where can I get it? I don't want to reinstall Windows to get a bit more RAM, but I would like a way to make the current Windows use all available memory.

Windows Server 2000 and 2003 32bit can access more than 4GB RAM using PAE, but XP (AFAIK) can't, even though it uses PAE to get DEP.

no what I said is that to access more than 1.6gigs in vista back a few years back I got a hotfix. That hotfix was before xp sevice pack 3 and the first vista service pack I think if I am not mistaken. I think the hotfix allows the op sys to access as much as 3.5gigs

The newer service packs probably include the patch as standard due to games getting bigger and the need being essential.

[Freedom Kira]

I thought Windows x86 can handle up to 4GB (GiB). That's the addressing limit for 32 bits anyway, assuming each address can address one byte and there are no reserved addresses. Or am I wrong there?

[datora]

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There is a hotfix for XPSP3 32bit that allows it to use more than 3-3.5GB RAM? If so, where can I get it? I don't want to reinstall Windows to get a bit more RAM, but I would like a way to make the current Windows use all available memory.

I could well be misunderstanding that.  I have seen mention that there are supposed to be ways to get around the 3.5/3.6 GB addressing limits for a 32-bit operating system.

Given how this topic started out, I may have conflated that to an assumption that there is such a fix available for WinXP.  I have seen mention that 1) a 32-bit OS can be made to use more than this limit, 2) I have seen linux mentioned as having such fixes/pathches available, and 3) I have seen mention that "Windows" can be made to perform this hat trick.

However ... it could well be that 3) is my misunderstanding, and also that some versions of Windows can do this while WinXP specifically may not.  I am very certain about 1) & 2) though.

Sorry if I got that wrong.  I'll keep an eye open to it and see if I can remember where I ran across some of these discussions.  I don't have any 32-bit systems configured with 4 GB RAM, so I have never pursued it.  I just tucked the information away to research it in the future if I was so lucky one day.

Since the topic started off talking about breaking the 32-bit addressing limit, I sort of misled myself into the assumption about it applying to WinXP.  Reading through what the OP has now provided us with, I see several misunderstandings in effect.  At the minimum, this isn't a discussion about 32-bit operating systems so much as it is about common programming conventions for 32-bit games & applications ... in which case I am unaware of patches or hotfixes that would allow a game/app to exceed the addressing capability of the OS it is installed on.

Use of the term "hotfix" generated an expectation on my part that we were discussing an official Microsoft hotfix.  I think the OP is discussing some sort of independent app that supposedly boosts RAM use/efficiency/speed etc.

[rkruger]

I thought Windows x86 can handle up to 4GB (GiB). That's the addressing limit for 32 bits anyway, assuming each address can address one byte and there are no reserved addresses. Or am I wrong there?

Some memory will be occupied by the kernel, so you could call it "reserved", since it will not be available to user processes.
Also, modern versions of the Windows kernel can handle more memory on x86 platforms, as Pentium100 said, due to PAE support. However, Microsoft restricts certain versions of Windows to 4GB due to "licensing issues". But even with PAE, a single process can only access up to 4GB minus "reserved" memory.

At the minimum, this isn't a discussion about 32-bit operating systems so much as it is about common programming conventions for 32-bit games & applications ... in which case I am unaware of patches or hotfixes that would allow a game/app to exceed the addressing capability of the OS it is installed on.

And it's not possible to patch it in software anyway (for the OS), because it's a hardware limitation.
Then again, it's "possible" for an application/game to be divided into multiple processes that can each address up to ~4GB.

[Freedom Kira]

Hmm, not quite the idea of "reserved" I had in mind. I would treat any kind of hardware reservation of memory to be "reserved memory," like what Windows 7 often does, supposedly to share with the graphics processor. Memory used by the kernel is still memory used by Windows, after all.

[Pentium100]

Also, modern versions of the Windows kernel can handle more memory on x86 platforms, as Pentium100 said, due to PAE support. However, Microsoft restricts certain versions of Windows to 4GB due to "licensing issues". But even with PAE, a single process can only access up to 4GB minus "reserved" memory..

With PAE and AWE, a single process can access as much as it wants, but only 4GB at a time. Basically, it can reserve more memory and then as the OS to map part of it to its address space.
This is similar to the way EMS works. You can have, say, 4MB of EMS memory, but only 64KB is accessible at a time. So, when the program is done with it, it requests DOS (and in turn, the EMS driver) to map the next 64KB to that address space.

Servers started having more than 4GB of RAM before x86_64 was released. My 32bit server can have up to 16GB RAM.  Windows Server 2000, 2003 and 2008 (there is no 2000 x86_64) all support more than 4GB on a 32bit system.

[rkruger]

Also, modern versions of the Windows kernel can handle more memory on x86 platforms, as Pentium100 said, due to PAE support. However, Microsoft restricts certain versions of Windows to 4GB due to "licensing issues". But even with PAE, a single process can only access up to 4GB minus "reserved" memory..

With PAE and AWE, a single process can access as much as it wants, but only 4GB at a time. Basically, it can reserve more memory and then as the OS to map part of it to its address space.

Ok, I was not really aware of the features AWE provided.
Still, it's up to the application/game designers to make use of this feature. There is no magical patch to let an arbitrary program allocate beyond 4GB of memory on a 32-bit system.

[Bob2004]

My understanding is as follows: 32bit Windows can only use up to 4GB of memory (rounded up), without using PAE. Individual applications in 32-bit Windows (at least in consumer versions - XP, Vista, 7) can only use up to 2GB each, unless the "Large Address Aware" flag is specifically enabled at compile-time by the developer, in which that process can use up to 4GB.

Servers and Linux are obviously different - servers usually have PAE enabled, which isn't necessarily available in consumer versions of windows, and the 2GB limit per process is probably lifted as well. There are often patches or similar available for Linux to enable PAE or some equivalent, and I'm fairly sure the 2GB per process limit is a Windows thing.

Either way, Windows can always use more than 1.6GB of RAM, as can applications, so I honestly have no idea what the OP's problem is, or what exactly he's trying to ask.

EDIT: Did a quick bit of research, and here is a good, detailed explanation of the 4GB memory limit in Windows, why it's there, and how to patch it out of Windows Vista (though I strongly recommend not doing that unless you know exactly what you're doing - it requires modifying the Windows kernel, which is complicated and will void your warranty/license). There are definitely premade patches available for Vista and 7 (not going to post them though since it's still fairly advanced, still voids your warranty, and is generally not recommended by anyone), but I didn't find any for XP in my 2 minutes of looking.

[Pentium100]

Ok, I was not really aware of the features AWE provided.
Still, it's up to the application/game designers to make use of this feature. There is no magical patch to let an arbitrary program allocate beyond 4GB of memory on a 32-bit system.

However, it would be possible to run more programs, even if each program can only use 2GB, unless it was written to use AWE.