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more ram?
    #7737901 -

so my laptop has 2 gb of ram right now but i can add up to 2 extra gb, bringing the total to 4gb. it performs perfectly but i'm wondering if adding those extra gb will give a me a performance boost, perhaps faster boot times or something. i have a 32 bit version of xp. i don't really plan on getting that extra ram, just curious.

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Re: more ram? [Re: maggotz]
    #7737915 -

a majority of that 4th GB would be rendered useless because you have a 32bit OS. it would have no way of addressing it.


--------------------
No, no, you're not thinking, you're just being logical. ~ Niels Bohr

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Re: more ram? [Re: automan]
    #7737927 -

that's what i thought. what about linux? i use it too.

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Re: more ram? [Re: maggotz]
    #7737954 -

i have 512 ddr pc3200 and have never had any problems.. i can play 1080p hd videos.. halflife 2 at full resolution/settings, etc..

vista is a memory hog though..

i think any memory over 1 gig is totally unnecessary even if you are doing rendering, compiling, etc..

plus for a laptop it would just burn more battery and maybe increase internal heat..

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Re: more ram? [Re: im_on_a_boat]
    #7737994 -

i have no performance problems at all, even when i had vista ultimate it ran smoothly. i was just curious about whether it would make a huge difference or not, and apparently it won't.

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Re: more ram? [Re: maggotz]
    #7738120 -

no. i dont think it would make any difference at all.

might actually hinder performance because it can add more heat to your already-cramped area of a laptop and hurt battery life..

that's my opinion.

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Re: more ram? [Re: maggotz]
    #7739177 -

> i'm wondering if adding those extra gb will give a me a performance boost, perhaps faster boot times or something.

It depends upon what you are doing, but probably not. Adding memory can actually hurt performance, in a round about way. (I will explain below.)

> i have a 32 bit version of xp.

With most 32-bit OS, the physical memory is broken up into 4k pages. The OS uses a table to keep track of each 4k page with each entry in the table taking up space. With small amounts of physical memory, the table overhead is fairly small and insignificant. With huge amounts of physical memory, the table overhead can literally become half the size of the physical memory... you gain no extra memory (because you are using all the extra memory to track itself) and you lose performance as the OS spends more time doing housekeeping.

There are ways around this problem, such as using 1M or 4M pages instead of 4K pages. Fewer pages mean less table overhead. The downside is that it takes a LONG time to swap a 4M page to disk compared to the time it takes to swap a 4K page to disk. Another downside occurs when a program only needs a few K of space to run, but the system hands out a 4M chunk.

> i don't really plan on getting that extra ram, just curious.

I doubt you notice any change one way or the other. Any performance you gain will probably be lost due to OS overhead managing the memory. You might notice a bit of a boost when you load an application or switch between large applications (such as access and photoshop).


--------------------
Just another spore in the wind.

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Re: more ram? [Re: automan]
    #7739188 -

> a majority of that 4th GB would be rendered useless because you have a 32bit OS. it would have no way of addressing it.

Eh? 2^32=4GB ... Besides, most modern x86 chips support PAE (physical address extension) allowing them to address more than 4GB of memory... of course, this doesn't help with the problems I outlined above. If you want a lot of memory, switch to a 64-bit chipset and a 64-bit OS.

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Re: more ram? [Re: Seuss]
    #7739264 -

Seuss said:
> a majority of that 4th GB would be rendered useless because you have a 32bit OS. it would have no way of addressing it.

Eh? 2^32=4GB ... Besides, most modern x86 chips support PAE (physical address extension) allowing them to address more than 4GB of memory... of course, this doesn't help with the problems I outlined above. If you want a lot of memory, switch to a 64-bit chipset and a 64-bit OS.


sure, a 32bit OS is able to map 4GB of IO reservations, but windows will reserve part of that address space for bios, pci bus, etc. i have seen it as high as 750MB of missing ram and that's on a system without a pci express video card.


--------------------
No, no, you're not thinking, you're just being logical. ~ Niels Bohr

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Re: more ram? [Re: Seuss]
    #7740020 -

cool. thanks for the info.

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Re: more ram? [Re: maggotz]
    #7740621 -

> sure, a 32bit OS is able to map 4GB of IO reservations, but windows will reserve part of that address space for bios, pci bus, etc.

Just because part of the 4GB virtual address space is mapped for IO does not mean that all 4GB of physical memory cannot be used. Granted, a single process cannot map more than 4GB minus wired overhead into "user space", but with multiple processes and clever page mapping, I can still use all of the physical memory.


--------------------
Just another spore in the wind.

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