I do a lot of image, audio and video processing. After I upgraded my 32 bit systems to max possible 3.2 GB RAM, life has become much faster. I am sure a 64 bit system with even more RAM will be much better for me. Like Leo said, it depends on what you want to use it for that matters.
Posted by: Rahul Mehta at October 18, 2009 10:01 AM
I've considered shutting of my virtual memory especially on my netbook that I usually just use MS-Word, excel, surf, email and vlc player (no more than 2 or 3 applications at a time). Is there a utility to monitor virtual memory use to see if that would be practical. And if I run out of memory could that cause a freeze-up and system lock-out if the system loads too many processes at start-up. If that happens could I recover by booting in safe mode and restarting virtual memory.
Posted by: Mark at October 18, 2009 2:16 PM
Leo,
You wrote "...In addition my understanding is that Windows 7 will include an optional "Windows XP mode" that boils down to nothing more than a virtual machine..."
Ok, but don't forget to mention that some Intel CPUs CAN'T run it. One person that buys hardware with one of these CPUs and can't run the XP Mode is really going to feel "betrayed" no one warned them.
Posted by: Clifford Myatt Jr at October 18, 2009 4:52 PM
i'd like to also suggest that one reads the motherboard manual to ensure that his/her board has a maximum RAm allowed ... and he does not add more than that maximum ...
my P IV has a max of 4 GIG Ram so I added that in recently and so far I have not had a problem
using XP Pro as the operating system.
david from Toronto Canada
Posted by: david at October 20, 2009 7:51 AM
Leo I have an ASUS P5K and the motherboard states that it cannot operate with more than 3GB in 32bit. I now have 4GB using windows xp pro 64bit and it runs very fast with no problems. So far I have found only 1 prog which will not run.
Posted by: Howard Bretman at October 20, 2009 9:01 AM
I have a securty system that I would like to install on my home computer and also on my laptop. People keep telling me how good it is and how easy it is to install. What do you think and how do I pay for a cup of coffee for you?
Posted by: Orenza John Cotton at October 20, 2009 9:10 AM
Dear Leo,
I read the article with interest and did some exercise on my Windows XP32 system, equipped with 2Gb of RAM.
I changed the virtual memory setting to NOT PAGED in order to force all loaded applications into RAM.
Estonishing, loading all applications I have on my system (AUTOCAD 2009, GMAX, Flight SimulatorX,Visual Studio C++ and VB, several Simulation Software, Microsoft application like Word, Exel, Powerpoint, Oulook Express, Internet Browser etc. ....) I could get my system RAM only filled up to 1.6Gb.
Now who has all this nonsens loaded at the same time? Do we really need that much RAM everybody is talking about? and considering this, by default Windows installs a virtuell data space on Hard disk which is used to direct and store part of the data needed for an application to read it if it is needed.
If I use paging, how many applications I load, 800Mb are hardly reached.
Everybody can observe the filling state of RAM with the Task Manager > Performance Tab.
NB: One effect I noticed: Reading Ask LEO's e-mail, I could not load the present article, the internet explorer did not load this page. Unloading everything except the mail application everything were back to normal.
So, again do we really need to buy that much RAM? or do I misunderstand how Windows works.
Regards Lutz
Posted by: Lutz Pansegrau at October 20, 2009 9:58 AM
price?
ill buy the highest one..
my spec:
Intel Core i7 920 2.67GHz (8cpus)
Dual NVIDIA GTX295
12 GB RAM 1066 Mhz
Vista ultimate 64 bit
Posted by: bass at October 20, 2009 2:21 PM
I'm with Lutz, although you touched on it, I agree that your article could have made the point clearer that the "average" home user wouldn't need more than the 32bit RAM RAM limit (4/3.??GB) at this time.
I'm running Vista Business 32bit on a 1 yr old laptop with 4 gb (3066 MB usable indicated, the limit you mentioned). Right now I've got the following apps open:
FireFox (with a dozen tabs)
3 Word 2003 docs (including a 32MB file with graphics),
Word 2007,
Excel 2003, 2007,
IE 8,
PowerPoint 2003 2007,
and my RAM usage has peaked at 2GB, then dropped to 1.98GB.
So the point I'm trying to make is that for the average home user (ie excluding hard core gamers) the 32 bit limit of 4/3.?? GB is more than enough. For gamers or photo/video editors 64 bit and more RAM might be appropriate. And as you pointed out, over time code bloat and multi-threading enablement (both in Win and applications) will lead to more liberal use of RAM. But I suspect that will be more than the life of hardware purchased any time soon, ie more than 3 or 4 years down the road.
Another point to remember is that Windows legacy is from DOS (it's still there down in the 'genetic' design roots of Win) and world where RAM has traditionally been exhorbitantly expensive. So the design of Win tends to conserve that "expensive" & "limited" resource called RAM. And, again, as you pointed out it gets "cranky" if it can't find a swap file.
As an alternate strategy to force using RAM, instead of 0 swap file, try a very small one, 1kb or 1mb. That way Win still finds one, it is just filled up very quickly. I havent' tested this approach to see if it works, but it might be a viable workaround.
Posted by: rohn at October 20, 2009 3:31 PM
Leo - this post is close to my heart. I was an early adopter of 64 bit at work. I built a farm of citrix servers on 64 bit architecture each of which has 8Gb RAM. It was a while until we could run our 'preferred' antivirus solution on them as it took some of the bigger AV players over 6 months more to release 64bit AV clients. Then we found many apps by smaller companies just wouldn't install at all due to some different filesystem structures and a new 'Wow6432node' compatibility registry hive. So it ended up having to be a mixed 64 bit and 32 bit solution - which caused the most wonderfully complex print driver nightmare. But, we've been running these 64 bit windows servers for around 3 yrs now. Here's some info on one, right now:
- Two dual-core AMD processors
- 8 Gb RAM
- 28 consecutive users are sharing a published desktop on that server right now
- 12 instances of excel are running with who knows how many windows used on each
- 16 'heavy' database clients running
- 7xIE, 22xOutlook, etc etc. You get the message.
- Currently 3.5Gb of the 8Gb memory is UNUSED.
So I'd say - yes, 64bit is currently a totally unnecessary marketing ploy. Not only that, but you'll find SOMETHING that you need that just.. won't work.
And you might end up running a seperate 32 bit OS on the machine virtually just to run your rogue app. And why not? Got to use the bloody RAM up somehow....
Tal
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I do a lot of image, audio and video processing. After I upgraded my 32 bit systems to max possible 3.2 GB RAM, life has become much faster. I am sure a 64 bit system with even more RAM will be much better for me. Like Leo said, it depends on what you want to use it for that matters.
Posted by: Rahul Mehta at October 18, 2009 10:01 AMI've considered shutting of my virtual memory especially on my netbook that I usually just use MS-Word, excel, surf, email and vlc player (no more than 2 or 3 applications at a time). Is there a utility to monitor virtual memory use to see if that would be practical. And if I run out of memory could that cause a freeze-up and system lock-out if the system loads too many processes at start-up. If that happens could I recover by booting in safe mode and restarting virtual memory.
Posted by: Mark at October 18, 2009 2:16 PMLeo,
You wrote "...In addition my understanding is that Windows 7 will include an optional "Windows XP mode" that boils down to nothing more than a virtual machine..."
Ok, but don't forget to mention that some Intel CPUs CAN'T run it. One person that buys hardware with one of these CPUs and can't run the XP Mode is really going to feel "betrayed" no one warned them.
Posted by: Clifford Myatt Jr at October 18, 2009 4:52 PMi'd like to also suggest that one reads the motherboard manual to ensure that his/her board has a maximum RAm allowed ... and he does not add more than that maximum ...
my P IV has a max of 4 GIG Ram so I added that in recently and so far I have not had a problem
using XP Pro as the operating system.
david from Toronto Canada
Posted by: david at October 20, 2009 7:51 AMLeo I have an ASUS P5K and the motherboard states that it cannot operate with more than 3GB in 32bit. I now have 4GB using windows xp pro 64bit and it runs very fast with no problems. So far I have found only 1 prog which will not run.
Posted by: Howard Bretman at October 20, 2009 9:01 AMI have a securty system that I would like to install on my home computer and also on my laptop. People keep telling me how good it is and how easy it is to install. What do you think and how do I pay for a cup of coffee for you?
Posted by: Orenza John Cotton at October 20, 2009 9:10 AMDear Leo,
I read the article with interest and did some exercise on my Windows XP32 system, equipped with 2Gb of RAM.
I changed the virtual memory setting to NOT PAGED in order to force all loaded applications into RAM.
Estonishing, loading all applications I have on my system (AUTOCAD 2009, GMAX, Flight SimulatorX,Visual Studio C++ and VB, several Simulation Software, Microsoft application like Word, Exel, Powerpoint, Oulook Express, Internet Browser etc. ....) I could get my system RAM only filled up to 1.6Gb.
Now who has all this nonsens loaded at the same time? Do we really need that much RAM everybody is talking about? and considering this, by default Windows installs a virtuell data space on Hard disk which is used to direct and store part of the data needed for an application to read it if it is needed.
If I use paging, how many applications I load, 800Mb are hardly reached.
Everybody can observe the filling state of RAM with the Task Manager > Performance Tab.
NB: One effect I noticed: Reading Ask LEO's e-mail, I could not load the present article, the internet explorer did not load this page. Unloading everything except the mail application everything were back to normal.
So, again do we really need to buy that much RAM? or do I misunderstand how Windows works.
Regards Lutz
Posted by: Lutz Pansegrau at October 20, 2009 9:58 AMprice?
Posted by: bass at October 20, 2009 2:21 PMill buy the highest one..
my spec:
Intel Core i7 920 2.67GHz (8cpus)
Dual NVIDIA GTX295
12 GB RAM 1066 Mhz
Vista ultimate 64 bit
I'm with Lutz, although you touched on it, I agree that your article could have made the point clearer that the "average" home user wouldn't need more than the 32bit RAM RAM limit (4/3.??GB) at this time.
I'm running Vista Business 32bit on a 1 yr old laptop with 4 gb (3066 MB usable indicated, the limit you mentioned). Right now I've got the following apps open:
FireFox (with a dozen tabs)
3 Word 2003 docs (including a 32MB file with graphics),
Word 2007,
Excel 2003, 2007,
IE 8,
PowerPoint 2003 2007,
and my RAM usage has peaked at 2GB, then dropped to 1.98GB.
So the point I'm trying to make is that for the average home user (ie excluding hard core gamers) the 32 bit limit of 4/3.?? GB is more than enough. For gamers or photo/video editors 64 bit and more RAM might be appropriate. And as you pointed out, over time code bloat and multi-threading enablement (both in Win and applications) will lead to more liberal use of RAM. But I suspect that will be more than the life of hardware purchased any time soon, ie more than 3 or 4 years down the road.
Another point to remember is that Windows legacy is from DOS (it's still there down in the 'genetic' design roots of Win) and world where RAM has traditionally been exhorbitantly expensive. So the design of Win tends to conserve that "expensive" & "limited" resource called RAM. And, again, as you pointed out it gets "cranky" if it can't find a swap file.
As an alternate strategy to force using RAM, instead of 0 swap file, try a very small one, 1kb or 1mb. That way Win still finds one, it is just filled up very quickly. I havent' tested this approach to see if it works, but it might be a viable workaround.
Posted by: rohn at October 20, 2009 3:31 PMLeo - this post is close to my heart. I was an early adopter of 64 bit at work. I built a farm of citrix servers on 64 bit architecture each of which has 8Gb RAM. It was a while until we could run our 'preferred' antivirus solution on them as it took some of the bigger AV players over 6 months more to release 64bit AV clients. Then we found many apps by smaller companies just wouldn't install at all due to some different filesystem structures and a new 'Wow6432node' compatibility registry hive. So it ended up having to be a mixed 64 bit and 32 bit solution - which caused the most wonderfully complex print driver nightmare. But, we've been running these 64 bit windows servers for around 3 yrs now. Here's some info on one, right now:
- Two dual-core AMD processors
- 8 Gb RAM
- 28 consecutive users are sharing a published desktop on that server right now
- 12 instances of excel are running with who knows how many windows used on each
- 16 'heavy' database clients running
- 7xIE, 22xOutlook, etc etc. You get the message.
- Currently 3.5Gb of the 8Gb memory is UNUSED.
So I'd say - yes, 64bit is currently a totally unnecessary marketing ploy. Not only that, but you'll find SOMETHING that you need that just.. won't work.
Posted by: Tal at October 21, 2009 5:34 PMAnd you might end up running a seperate 32 bit OS on the machine virtually just to run your rogue app. And why not? Got to use the bloody RAM up somehow....
Tal
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