Re: budget gaming hardware spec

2009/3/3 Daniel Pittman <[email protected]>:
> Owen Townend <[email protected]> writes:
>> 2009/3/2 Daniel Pittman <[email protected]>:
>>> Ben <[email protected]> writes:
>>>> 2009/3/1 Voytek Eymont <[email protected]>:
>
> [...]
>
>>> With PAE support you can even use memory hoisted above the 4GB mark,
>>> although this also requires hardware support, and most cheap desktop
>>> boards *don't* support the requisite settings.
>>>
>>> http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEdrv.mspx
>> [snip]
>>
>> Unfortunately, confirmed by the very article you linked, no flavour of
>> WinXP-32 can address more than 4GB for the combined RAM/Video/ legacy
>> space.  The /PAE switch does _almost_ nothing.
>
> Unfortunately I don't have appropriate hardware on hand to test this,
> but I think that ours is a disagreement over this line:
>
>> FTA:
>> "Windows XP (all versions)    4 GB of physical RAM*"
>> ...
>> "* Total physical address space is limited to 4 GB on these versions
>> of Windows."
>
> My understanding is that PAE allows the system to use up to 4GB of
> physical RAM, even when some of that is located above the 4GB mark.
>
> You understand, OTOH, that it only allows RAM up to the 4GB mark.
>
> Alas, that I can't test this, because I am curious: it could be that
> I am wrong here, and that would be useful to know.

hmm.. you've got me intrigued now, if I can get some downtime on my
(myth) TV I'll move some ram to my desktop and try it...

I have though had the fortune of using 6GB ram in a desktop box running
Ubuntu 32bit + server kernel. All detected, all usable[0].

cheers,
Owen.

footnotes:
--
[0] Restrictions though - 32bit per process (or maybe thread?) address
limit, but otherwise usable.
Never tested the restriction though - VMWare has (had?) a ram limit
per VM of less than this and that was what the box was used for.
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