Windows Vista or Not?

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 6:04 am

I was ready an article about Windows Vista Rady Boost and so I went to the Microsoft website and researched it more. Lets take a look at what MS said. The question I have is: Can you have to much ram? If you have all your slots filled with 3 gig of ram and you buy a 8 gig USB flash drive (around 80 bucks USD) could you have an additional 8 gig of ram without problems?
The link is at the bottom if you care to look.

Windows ReadyBoost improves system memory and boosts performance.

Adding system memory (typically referred to as RAM) is often the best way to improve a PC's performance, since more memory means more applications are ready to run without accessing the hard drive. However, upgrading memory can be difficult and costly, and some machines have limited memory expansion capabilities, making it impossible to add RAM.

Windows Vista introduces Windows ReadyBoost, a new concept in adding memory to a system. You can use non-volatile flash memory, such as that on a universal serial bus (USB) flash drive, to improve performance without having to add additional memory "under the hood."

The flash memory device serves as an additional memory cache—that is, memory that the computer can access much more quickly than it can access data on the hard drive. Windows ReadyBoost relies on the intelligent memory management of Windows SuperFetch and can significantly improve system responsiveness.

It's easy to use Windows ReadyBoost. When a removable memory device such as a USB flash drive or a secure digital (SD) memory card is first inserted into a port, Windows Vista checks to see if its performance is fast enough to work with Windows ReadyBoost. If so, you are asked if you want to use this device to speed up system performance. You can choose to allocate part of a USB drive's memory to speed up performance and use the remainder to store files.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/produc ... mance.mspx

Post by **paazin** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 2:19 pm

I'm going to look into it, Storm. As far as I know, you still have the 4 GB limit with a 32-bit processor of addressable memory. It may be that's expanded somehow, but I'm uncertain - I know for a fact that in XP the limit was 1.5-2 GB per process and I'm not sure if despite all that, it was increased.

If anything, the OS you'll want to get is Windows Server 2008 as I'd guess it'd have more memory options (and from what I've played with it, is actually quite nice) but that won't be released in a bit, I think.

Swift · Post by **Swift** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 3:31 pm

paazin wrote:I'm going to look into it, Storm. As far as I know, you still have the 4 GB limit with a 32-bit processor of addressable memory. It may be that's expanded somehow, but I'm uncertain - I know for a fact that in XP the limit was 1.5-2 GB per process and I'm not sure if despite all that, it was increased.

IIRC if you had one of the service packs windows XP supported the full 4 gigs, but as you said, with a 32 bit processer, 4 gig is the maximum it can address anyway. 64bit processors greatly expand on that limit:

Wikipeia wrote:However, by the early 1990s, the continual reductions in the cost of memory led to installations with quantities of RAM approaching 4 gigabytes, and the use of virtual memory spaces exceeding the 4-gigabyte ceiling became desirable for handling certain types of problems. In response, a number of companies began releasing new families of chips with 64-bit architectures, initially for supercomputers and high-end workstation and server machines. 64-bit computing has gradually drifted down to the personal computer desktop, with some models in Apple's Macintosh lines switching to PowerPC 970 processors (termed "G5" by Apple) in 2003 and to 64-bit EM64T processors in 2006, and with x86-64 processors becoming common in high-end PCs. The emergence of the 64-bit architecture effectively increases the memory ceiling to 264 addresses, equivalent to 17,179,869,184 gigabytes or 16 exabytes of RAM. To put this in perspective, in the days when 4 MiB of main memory was commonplace, the maximum memory ceiling of 232 addresses was about 1,000 times larger than typical memory configurations. Today, when 1 GiB of main memory is common, the ceiling of 264 addresses is about ten billion times larger, i.e. ten million times more headroom.

Most 64-bit consumer PCs on the market today have an artificial limit on the amount of memory they can recognize, because physical constraints make it highly unlikely that one will need support for the full 16 exabyte capacity. Apple's Mac Pro, for example, can be physically configured with up to 16 gigabytes of memory, and as such there is no need for support beyond that amount. A recent Linux kernel (version 2.6.16) can be compiled with support for up to 64 gigabytes of memory.

Windows Vista versions have the following RAM limitations:

32bit versions: 4gig
64bit Home basic: 8gig
64bit Home premium: 16gig
64bit Business, Enterprise and Ultimate: 128gig

Per Process limitations i am not entirely sure of however.

fluffmonster · Post by **fluffmonster** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 4:25 pm

Sounds cool, but given the other shortcomings of Vista at the present time its hardly enough to base a decision on.

My opinion is that Vista is not ready for me yet.

Burt · Post by **Burt** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 4:27 pm

64bit Business, Enterprise and Ultimate: 128gig

Nekulor · Post by **Nekulor** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 4:28 pm

How is vista 64 bit? Will my current dual core intel duo be fine for such an OS?

Stormseeker · Post by **Stormseeker** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 6:29 pm

So in theory if you had ultimate and a big usb flash drive (or multiple ones) you could host nwn2 with a bigger mod. Does this also give for the portable harddrives that connect by usb could also act as ram?

fluffmonster · Post by **fluffmonster** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 6:56 pm

If you go Vista, be prepared to deal with lack of drivers. Just as an example, HP will never provide vista drivers for printers/scanners no longer produced. Its even worse with the 64-bit version.

Until all the hardware and software vendors have caught up, and certainly no earlier than the first service pack, I would avoid Vista. Who gives a crap about the memory part if you can't get your other stuff to work with it?

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 7:03 pm

Well I run XP Pro and in the process of building another PC and will not upgrade until Vista come out with SP1 or maybe SP2. I have read several post of people liking it now and even more that are having nothing but problems.

The big seller is more ram at a cheap price.

AcadiusLost · Post by **AcadiusLost** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 7:36 pm

It's important to realize- while flash memory of the sort they are using can be faster than hard drive access, they are still many, many (many) times slower than DDR2 system RAM. There are reasons why it's a lot smaller and cheaper.

No amount of operating system trickery is going to let you use a cheap USB2 flash drive in a way that is equivalent to main system RAM- all it does is give a boost in access speed during certain times when your system would be waiting on the hard drive to spin up and access data.

It's a clever idea, and shows how far flash memory is coming (may replace traditional hard drives in time)- but it's a totally separate category and not comparable with a system RAM upgrade.

In general, memory access speed breaks down like this:

On-die processor cache (L1, L2) > DDR system RAM >>> high-end optimized flash memory > Hard drive access >> CD/DVD access > wired network access > wireless network access > floppy/zip access (though some may vary- gigabit ethernet, etc)

It's a creative use of cheap flash memory, but it's not going to do anything in terms of hosting larger modules.

Joos · Post by **Joos** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 10:15 pm

Stormseeker wrote:So in theory if you had ultimate and a big usb flash drive (or multiple ones) you could host nwn2 with a bigger mod. Does this also give for the portable harddrives that connect by usb could also act as ram?

No. The code needs to be changed to "see" the memory space above 2 gigs. As it stands today, with 32bit games, they simply crash when maximum adressable memory is reached, even if windows reports free memory. This is already a problem with super advanced games such as Supreme Commander.

If obsidian coded the NWN server executable to be a multithreaded 64-bit app, all our problems would be gone, but as it stands today, we are royally screwed!

Joos · Post by **Joos** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 10:20 pm

I've read a few comparisons and I must say, that the readyboost is a bit lackluster. If used to boost a system with only 1 gig of ram, it makes sence, but honestly, you would be better of uppgrading your RAM to 2 gigs.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 10:21 pm

Prices

1
Kingston 1024MB PC8500 DDR3 1066MHz Memory
DDR3 is the next generation of Double Data Rate (DDR) Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory (SDRAM).
$219.99

Versus

2
Memorex 1GB Traveldrive USB2.0 Flash Drive
The TravelDrive USB 2.0 flash drive offers users a convenient way to store data, digital photos, video and MP3 files.
$17.99

Speed? USB not as fast as DDR3 but for 1/10th price? Well worth the speed difference.

Joos · Post by **Joos** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 10:23 pm

Hmmm, why DD3? Are you building a new computer?

You would be way better off using a previous generation motherboard and DDR2 RAM at the moment. Which is a lot cheaper.

Post by **paazin** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 12:10 am

Swift wrote: IIRC if you had one of the service packs windows XP supported the full 4 gigs, but as you said, with a 32 bit processer, 4 gig is the maximum it can address anyway. 64bit processors greatly expand on that limit:

With Linux you can rig up more than 4 GB of memory with a 32 bit machine. Not sure how the kernel does that however.