Does Vista Home Premimum Play Nice With 4GB Memory?

I am hearing some talk----urban legends?----and reading on the web that
32-bit Vista does not know how to manage 4 GB memory, which is odd, since
2^32 addressable spaces---namely 4GB---are all about that.

I have a 1-year old notebook that came with 2GB memory standard with VHP,
and I am thinking that the hard drive is working WAY TOO HARD as part of
the Virtual Mem. Screen/application updates are SUPER slow, and I really
don't have many tasks running (see OTHER BACKGROUND INFO below).

Am I wasting my money and time upgrading to 4 GB from 2 GB?



===========

OTHER BACKGROUND INFO:

I don't have really a lot of startup programs and am careful to keep them
to a minimum.

I rely on (reputedly memory hog) Firefox for the browser (TBird for the
mail client), and may have as many as 11-15 tabs open at a time; I access
Netflix on FF running an IE browser object inside (same with Hulu), and I
have a radio station stream playing often when I don't have a movie/TV
content running. I am careful to close browser pages running scripted ads
which suck up processor time. Office 2007 products seem well-behaved
(Word, PP) so I really don't worry about closing them when I have a few of
them open.

I have a lot of PDFs open, but they have never been much trouble. Adobe
Acrobat 8.x Pro was behaving badly in a super slow way, and with a system
reboot, it was still behaving badly. I did an application repair and it
seemed to sort itself out.

I am hearing from posts and reading from the Web that memory upgrades are
not helpful with Vista from the 2GB standard.

> I am hearing some talk----urban legends?----and reading on the web that
> 32-bit Vista does not know how to manage 4 GB memory, which is odd, since
> 2^32 addressable spaces---namely 4GB---are all about that.

The legends are wrong: 32-bit Vista will manage a 4G address space.
HOWEVER, several hundred kilobytes of that 4G address space are taken up by
the hardware devices, BIOS, etc. These hardware devices "overlap" the RAM,
rendering it unreachable in normal use. So only around 3.2 - 3.5G is
actually usable by Vista for itself and programs.

I think you will find an improvement by going up to 4G from your current 2G.
I did. The fact that a few hundred kilobytes is wasted is no reason not to
do it.

SteveT

Five By Five <5x5@5x5.com> wrote:

>I am hearing some talk----urban legends?----and reading on the web that
>32-bit Vista does not know how to manage 4 GB memory, which is odd, since
>2^32 addressable spaces---namely 4GB---are all about that.

32-bit Vista - as well as 32-bit XP and any other 32-bit Microsoft
client OS - has a 4GB address space. Some of that space must be used
to access your video RAM, your BIOS and some other things. The
remainder is used for your system RAM. You usually wind up with 3.2 -
3.5 GB of usable RAM. See http://members.cox.net/slatteryt/RAM.html

Vista SP1 will report that you have 4GB of RAM installed. But it won't
be able to use any more of that than pre-SP1 Vista.

--
Tim Slattery
MS MVP(Shell/User)
Slattery_T@bls.gov
http://members.cox.net/slatteryt

On Wed, 13 Aug 2008 12:40:01 -0700, Five By Five <5x5@5x5.com> wrote:

>
>I am hearing some talk----urban legends?----and reading on the web that
>32-bit Vista does not know how to manage 4 GB memory, which is odd, since
>2^32 addressable spaces---namely 4GB---are all about that.

You hear lots of talk. Interested in facts? In addition to what others
already set regarding how 32 bit Windows uses 4 GB of RAM you should
be aware having 4 GB RAM is OVERKILL for 99% of users.

I spend most of my day working on video editing at a professional
level using Sony's flagship Vegas. Rendering a video is one of the
most demanding tasks you can ask of any personal computer since it
really tasks the CPU. Being curious I tried various amounts of RAM to
see if it would create any worthwhile MEASURABLE improvement.

Changing from 1 GB to 2 GB there was some improvement, not a huge
amount but noticeable. Going from 2 GB to 4GB using a 32 bit version
of Vista Business the further "imprisonment" was not significant
enough to justify the expense.
>
>I have a 1-year old notebook that came with 2GB memory standard with VHP,
>and I am thinking that the hard drive is working WAY TOO HARD as part of
>the Virtual Mem. Screen/application updates are SUPER slow, and I really
>don't have many tasks running (see OTHER BACKGROUND INFO below).
>
>Am I wasting my money and time upgrading to 4 GB from 2 GB?

Screen updates should be nearly instant. A good test is to view a
dozen or so moderately large graphic files in rapid order using
Vista's own included Image Viewer. Then images should change and flash
by as fast and you can click the Next Arrow. You should NOT see the
images being drawn on screen nor should you see the new hour glass
icon indicating Vista is struggling along. If you do, something is
wrong and it likely isn't the amount of RAM you have. More likely your
graphic card, your motherboard, your CPU's speed, the speed of your
memory, not the amount of RAM, and how fast your FSB( FrontSideBus) is
which determines how fast data moves between your CPU registers and
memory.

I would download Autoruns (free Utility) and see how much junk gets
loaded at startup. Your system may simply be underpowered to do
multitasking and it is limping along trying. Getting rid of some or
all of the clutter will likely show a improvement.

The best test if you need more RAM or not is let Vista tell you. Use
Task Manager to see. Click Ctrl/Alt/Del, Task Manager, go to
Performance Tab, then go about your business opening and running the
applications you use most while observing the two graphs on the left
of the Task Manager window which should float on top of other windows.
For more details click on the Resource Monitor button.

There are many reasons for sluggish performance. While too little RAM
is a possible cause it belongs near the bottom of the list of
suspects, not the top.
>
>
>
>===========
>
>OTHER BACKGROUND INFO:
>
>I don't have really a lot of startup programs and am careful to keep them
>to a minimum.
>
>I rely on (reputedly memory hog) Firefox for the browser (TBird for the
>mail client), and may have as many as 11-15 tabs open at a time; I access
>Netflix on FF running an IE browser object inside (same with Hulu), and I
>have a radio station stream playing often when I don't have a movie/TV
>content running. I am careful to close browser pages running scripted ads
>which suck up processor time. Office 2007 products seem well-behaved
>(Word, PP) so I really don't worry about closing them when I have a few of
>them open.
>
>I have a lot of PDFs open, but they have never been much trouble. Adobe
>Acrobat 8.x Pro was behaving badly in a super slow way, and with a system
>reboot, it was still behaving badly. I did an application repair and it
>seemed to sort itself out.

Actually you are running a lot of stuff. If you have multiple PDF's
open, are streaming a video, multiple tabs in TBird and all the rest
you said on top of multiple startup programs (you didn't say how many
in you opinion isn't too many) that may be too much to handle.

"Ringmaster" <bigtop@VistaGeneralCircus.net> wrote in message
news:kth6a45ip436qpalqg2g949fq776t6ptdm@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 13 Aug 2008 12:40:01 -0700, Five By Five <5x5@5x5.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>I am hearing some talk----urban legends?----and reading on the web that
>>32-bit Vista does not know how to manage 4 GB memory, which is odd, since
>>2^32 addressable spaces---namely 4GB---are all about that.
>
> You hear lots of talk. Interested in facts? In addition to what others
> already set regarding how 32 bit Windows uses 4 GB of RAM you should
> be aware having 4 GB RAM is OVERKILL for 99% of users.
>
> I spend most of my day working on video editing at a professional
> level using Sony's flagship Vegas. Rendering a video is one of the
> most demanding tasks you can ask of any personal computer since it
> really tasks the CPU. Being curious I tried various amounts of RAM to
> see if it would create any worthwhile MEASURABLE improvement.


How can you spend most of your day with video editing equipment? Your main
tasks are posting insulting messages to everyone who has a different opinion
than YOU. What you really mean is you spend the time when you are NOT
posting, looking at animal PORN.

Fess up you scum bag.

On Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:11:12 -0500, Ringmaster wrote:

> On Wed, 13 Aug 2008 12:40:01 -0700, Five By Five <5x5@5x5.com> wrote:
>
>
>>I am hearing some talk----urban legends?----and reading on the web that
>>32-bit Vista does not know how to manage 4 GB memory, which is odd,
>>since 2^32 addressable spaces---namely 4GB---are all about that.
>
> You hear lots of talk. Interested in facts? In addition to what others
> already set regarding how 32 bit Windows uses 4 GB of RAM you should be
> aware having 4 GB RAM is OVERKILL for 99% of users.
>
> I spend most of my day working on video editing at a professional level
> using Sony's flagship Vegas. Rendering a video is one of the most
> demanding tasks you can ask of any personal computer since it really
> tasks the CPU. Being curious I tried various amounts of RAM to see if it
> would create any worthwhile MEASURABLE improvement.
>
> Changing from 1 GB to 2 GB there was some improvement, not a huge amount
> but noticeable. Going from 2 GB to 4GB using a 32 bit version of Vista
> Business the further "imprisonment" was not significant enough to
> justify the expense.

Pretty good answer Ringmaster.
Just gotta wonder how the term "imprisonment" worked its way in here ?
Are you day dreaming...or did you find a way to keep a woman finally ?


>>
>>I have a 1-year old notebook that came with 2GB memory standard with
>>VHP, and I am thinking that the hard drive is working WAY TOO HARD as
>>part of the Virtual Mem. Screen/application updates are SUPER slow, and
>>I really don't have many tasks running (see OTHER BACKGROUND INFO
>>below).
>>
>>Am I wasting my money and time upgrading to 4 GB from 2 GB?
>
> Screen updates should be nearly instant. A good test is to view a dozen
> or so moderately large graphic files in rapid order using Vista's own
> included Image Viewer. Then images should change and flash by as fast
> and you can click the Next Arrow. You should NOT see the images being
> drawn on screen nor should you see the new hour glass icon indicating
> Vista is struggling along. If you do, something is wrong and it likely
> isn't the amount of RAM you have. More likely your graphic card, your
> motherboard, your CPU's speed, the speed of your memory, not the amount
> of RAM, and how fast your FSB( FrontSideBus) is which determines how
> fast data moves between your CPU registers and memory.
>
> I would download Autoruns (free Utility) and see how much junk gets
> loaded at startup. Your system may simply be underpowered to do
> multitasking and it is limping along trying. Getting rid of some or all
> of the clutter will likely show a improvement.
>
> The best test if you need more RAM or not is let Vista tell you. Use
> Task Manager to see. Click Ctrl/Alt/Del, Task Manager, go to Performance
> Tab, then go about your business opening and running the applications
> you use most while observing the two graphs on the left of the Task
> Manager window which should float on top of other windows. For more
> details click on the Resource Monitor button.
>
> There are many reasons for sluggish performance. While too little RAM is
> a possible cause it belongs near the bottom of the list of suspects, not
> the top.
>>
>>
>>
>>===========
>>
>>OTHER BACKGROUND INFO:
>>
>>I don't have really a lot of startup programs and am careful to keep
>>them to a minimum.
>>
>>I rely on (reputedly memory hog) Firefox for the browser (TBird for the
>>mail client), and may have as many as 11-15 tabs open at a time; I
>>access Netflix on FF running an IE browser object inside (same with
>>Hulu), and I have a radio station stream playing often when I don't have
>>a movie/TV content running. I am careful to close browser pages running
>>scripted ads which suck up processor time. Office 2007 products seem
>>well-behaved (Word, PP) so I really don't worry about closing them when
>>I have a few of them open.
>>
>>I have a lot of PDFs open, but they have never been much trouble. Adobe
>>Acrobat 8.x Pro was behaving badly in a super slow way, and with a
>>system reboot, it was still behaving badly. I did an application repair
>>and it seemed to sort itself out.
>
> Actually you are running a lot of stuff. If you have multiple PDF's
> open, are streaming a video, multiple tabs in TBird and all the rest you
> said on top of multiple startup programs (you didn't say how many in you
> opinion isn't too many) that may be too much to handle.





--
Hobbes, Tiger Extraordinaire

On Wed, 13 Aug 2008 12:40:01 -0700, Five By Five <5x5@5x5.com> wrote:

>
> I am hearing some talk----urban legends?----and reading on the web that
> 32-bit Vista does not know how to manage 4 GB memory, which is odd, since
> 2^32 addressable spaces---namely 4GB---are all about that.



It's not just Vista, it's *all* 32-bit client versions of Windows. And
it's not that it "does not know how to manage 4 GB memory." Here's the
situation:

All 32-bit client versions of Windows (not just Vista/XP) have a 4GB
address space. That's the theoretical upper limit beyond which you can
not go.

But you can't use the entire 4GB of address space. Even though you
have a 4GB address space, you can only use *around* 3.1GB of RAM.
That's because some of that space is used by hardware and is not
available to the operating system and applications. The amount you can
use varies, depending on what hardware you have installed, but can
range from as little as 2GB to as much as 3.5GB. It's usually around
3.1GB.

Note that the hardware is using the address *space*, not the actual
RAM itself. The rest of the RAM goes unused because there is no
address space to map it too.



> I have a 1-year old notebook that came with 2GB memory standard with VHP,
> and I am thinking that the hard drive is working WAY TOO HARD as part of
> the Virtual Mem.


What makes you suspect *that* in particular? There are many reasons
why a computer can be slow. That's probably not the most likely one.

What apps do you run? For most people running ordinary business
applications under Vista, 2G is sufficient for good performance.


> Screen/application updates are SUPER slow, and I really
> don't have many tasks running (see OTHER BACKGROUND INFO below).


What protection against malware (viruses, trojans, worms, spyware,
etc.) do you run? Is it kept up to date? These days, malware infection
is one of most common causes of poor performance.


> Am I wasting my money and time upgrading to 4 GB from 2 GB?


If you upgraded, you wouldn't get 4GB usable, but you'd get around
3.1GB usable--more than you have now. Would that give you a
performance improvement or is a waste of money? Probably the latter.
Most people won't see any substantial improvement by going above 2GB,
but as I said above, it depends on what apps you run.

>
>
> ===========
>
> OTHER BACKGROUND INFO:
>
> I don't have really a lot of startup programs and am careful to keep them
> to a minimum.
>
> I rely on (reputedly memory hog) Firefox for the browser (TBird for the
> mail client), and may have as many as 11-15 tabs open at a time; I access
> Netflix on FF running an IE browser object inside (same with Hulu), and I
> have a radio station stream playing often when I don't have a movie/TV
> content running. I am careful to close browser pages running scripted ads
> which suck up processor time. Office 2007 products seem well-behaved
> (Word, PP) so I really don't worry about closing them when I have a few of
> them open.
>
> I have a lot of PDFs open, but they have never been much trouble. Adobe
> Acrobat 8.x Pro was behaving badly in a super slow way, and with a system
> reboot, it was still behaving badly. I did an application repair and it
> seemed to sort itself out.
>
> I am hearing from posts and reading from the Web that memory upgrades are
> not helpful with Vista from the 2GB standard.

--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP - Windows Desktop Experience
Please Reply to the Newsgroup

microsoft 'KBA' (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929605).
'explanation '
(http://4help.alienware.com/cgi-bin/a...i=&p_topview=1)


--
motarola2

On Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:17:22 -0700, "Bill Yanaire" <bill@yanaire.com>
wrote:

>
>"Ringmaster" <bigtop@VistaGeneralCircus.net> wrote in message
>news:kth6a45ip436qpalqg2g949fq776t6ptdm@4ax.com.. .
>> On Wed, 13 Aug 2008 12:40:01 -0700, Five By Five <5x5@5x5.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>I am hearing some talk----urban legends?----and reading on the web that
>>>32-bit Vista does not know how to manage 4 GB memory, which is odd, since
>>>2^32 addressable spaces---namely 4GB---are all about that.
>>
>> You hear lots of talk. Interested in facts? In addition to what others
>> already set regarding how 32 bit Windows uses 4 GB of RAM you should
>> be aware having 4 GB RAM is OVERKILL for 99% of users.
>>
>> I spend most of my day working on video editing at a professional
>> level using Sony's flagship Vegas. Rendering a video is one of the
>> most demanding tasks you can ask of any personal computer since it
>> really tasks the CPU. Being curious I tried various amounts of RAM to
>> see if it would create any worthwhile MEASURABLE improvement.
>
>
>How can you spend most of your day with video editing equipment? Your main
>tasks are posting insulting messages to everyone who has a different opinion
>than YOU. What you really mean is you spend the time when you are NOT
>posting, looking at animal PORN.

You really like following me around like a little puppy dog don't you
loser. You intelligence is on a par with your average rock. Oh and
fool, it is video editing SOFTWARE you stupid dumb ass.