Vista recognizing 4gb on 32-bit w/ Video Card

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Krycek1

Gawd
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Aug 6, 2004
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After about a month of using WIndows Vista with specs in sig and it only recognizing 3.25gb of system ram, all of the sudden it is recognizing all 4gb.

How they heck did this happen and is this even possible on a 32-bit Vista Ultimate OS? I do have a video card with 512mb so I'm worried that somehow its recognizing my system ram and not my video card ram which I don't want to happen.

Any thoughts?
 
If Physical Address Extension is enabled in your BIOS and the OS can use it, you can run more than 4gb of ram in a 32-bit OS.
 
If I remember right, pre-SP1 showed usable RAM, after SP1 shows installed RAM.
 
Yup, it just shows installed RAM not usable RAM.
People got scared (confused?) seeing only 3.25GB of RAM and went to BB or called the manf. This angered them because it incurred extra costs so MS changed it.
 
Although PAE does allow use of up to 64GB of addressable memory (by using 36-bit addressing), the extra memory isn't available in consumer versions of 32-bit Windows due to driver compatibility issues. It's showing installed ram since SP1, as stated.
 
If you open up task manager and flip to the performance tab, under the Physical Memory Text on the bottom, it will show you the "Total" of how much Vista is able to address after the video card and other devices.

Mine says 3324 (MB) for example, mainly due to my 640mb video card.

Other less technical places in vista 32 bit sp1 list the installed memory to make less technical people happy.
 
Shane_c82 said:
If Physical Address Extension is enabled in your BIOS and the OS can use it, you can run more than 4gb of ram in a 32-bit OS.
Click to expand...
That feature is disabled in 'Home' OSes. It's only available on 'Server' OSes because the drivers are designed to support 36 bit addresses where Home edition OS drivers are not required to do that.
 
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