I kinda Figured 4 Gigs would be kinda overkill as I Mostly Play the Older Sims F4:AF/OF, JF/A-18, LOMAC:FC, EECH, EE2. I also Bought Oblivion and GTR2 which works rather well on the older system, I was surprised I could run Oblivion an High settings at 1024x768

Well what about the Virtual Memory as Described by Microsoft in my last part of the Thread?? How can I tell if that is working and is it effective??

I have a SATA 500gb drive and I put in a 2nd drive that is IDE 200gb and use that for the Virtual Memory. I have NOT Partitioned it I will do that ltr. but for now I just want to know if using a IDE drive is effective for Vitrual memory as described in the bleow Link. I adjusted the Virtual memory as described in the link 1.5 to 3 times my RAM.


http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314482/EN-US/

But is it better to put your pagefile on your fast master SATA, or on your significantly slower (but less used) IDE?

that is the question

In the Article it did say to put tut the pagefile on a HD other than the one you are using for the Programs so I figured use the IDE??

Don't worry about page file placement. If you were significantly paging in to or out of the page file while playing games, it'd be a slide show. This setting is not meant for gamers. It is meant for people running SQL Server, Virtual Server, and so forth.

The answer to hard paging (paging in and out of backing store, be it the page file or application binaries) is one thing and one thing only: add more RAM.

Hey that is Great Info THNX Rilex. So can I just let windows manage my Virtual memory??

Will XP Pro 32bit handle 4 gigs??

1) Yes
2) Kinda. The problem is that the with x86 and boards which do not have the ability to map addresses >4G, they will map their hardware addresses starting at 4G on down until it is satisified (so this means addresses for the BIOS, any video card memory, etc.). Windows XP/Vista, as of XP SP2 x86, is then further artifically limited to addressing 3.5GB of physical memory. Of course, unless you have very little hardware, you may not get that much due to the first issue with the BIOS mapping addresses in the 4G range. I was able to get 3.5GB by setting my AGP aperature to 64MB (I had a GeForce 6800GT 256MB, IIRC).

I'm running Vista x64 w/ 8GB RAM now, though

Good grief...8GB? Are you running a server?

Usually 3 virtual machines at all times.

Joe, you should update this with:

4x1
2x2
4x2
2x4 (if you can afford it)

I know this thread has not been added to for some time but for anyone who wants me to experiment, I am running Vista 32bit and mainly play IL2 and FSX but also have quite a few of the latest FPS games.

I run a Q9550 and 8800GT 512MB with 2x1GB of PC6400 and am going to upgrade to 2x2GB of PC8500 purely for experimental reasons to see what gains I can get in loads and frames.

My mobo states that PC8500 may be downgraded to PC6400 speeds so apart from any latency differences it should be a straightforward double of RAM using 2 channels. (I know it may not use the full 4GB).

I will do some tests on IL2, FSX, LockOn and CODMW2 with the 2GB before installing the 4GB. If there are any specifics anyone wants me to test let me know. I should be doing this within the next 14 days hopefully.