02-22-2010, 06:30 AM
Very nice ynopum,
A long time ago i posted in one of the Autodesk threads (user asking about the memory the application needs) a very long dissertation but i'm too lazy to search.
Again:
Windows 32-bit Operating Systems implement a virtual memory system based on a flat 32-bit address space. 32-bits of address space translates into 4GB of virtual memory. A process can access up to 4GB of memory address space.
The 4GB memory address space is divided. Windows allocates the lower half of the 4GB address space (from 0x00000000 to 0x7FFFFFFF) to processes for their own unique private storage, and reserves the other half (from 0x80000000 to 0xFFFFFFFF) for the Operating System's use. Virtual memory provides a view of memory that does not necessarily correspond to the physical layout of memory.
By default, the address space is divided into two equal chunks. 2GB for the Kernel and 2GB for User-mode processes. The Kernel space is common for all applications and the User-mode processes each get their own 2GB address space to work with.
On 32-bit versions of Windows, the /3GB parameter enables 4-gigabyte (GB) random access memory (RAM) Tuning, a feature that enlarges the user-mode virtual address space to 3 GB and restricts the kernel-mode components to the remaining 1 GB.
On Windows Vista and on later versions of Windows, use the IncreaseUserVA element in BCDEdit.
I supose user trying to access the BIOS from the opearation system don't heard about the /3GB parameter and don't ask how to use more memory in applications but his question is about the Installed memory RAM in Control Panel\System and in this case my answer is more than possible. By the way even in a 64 bit system the graphic adapter may steal the memory in the same manner.
A long time ago i posted in one of the Autodesk threads (user asking about the memory the application needs) a very long dissertation but i'm too lazy to search.
Again:
Windows 32-bit Operating Systems implement a virtual memory system based on a flat 32-bit address space. 32-bits of address space translates into 4GB of virtual memory. A process can access up to 4GB of memory address space.
The 4GB memory address space is divided. Windows allocates the lower half of the 4GB address space (from 0x00000000 to 0x7FFFFFFF) to processes for their own unique private storage, and reserves the other half (from 0x80000000 to 0xFFFFFFFF) for the Operating System's use. Virtual memory provides a view of memory that does not necessarily correspond to the physical layout of memory.
By default, the address space is divided into two equal chunks. 2GB for the Kernel and 2GB for User-mode processes. The Kernel space is common for all applications and the User-mode processes each get their own 2GB address space to work with.
On 32-bit versions of Windows, the /3GB parameter enables 4-gigabyte (GB) random access memory (RAM) Tuning, a feature that enlarges the user-mode virtual address space to 3 GB and restricts the kernel-mode components to the remaining 1 GB.
On Windows Vista and on later versions of Windows, use the IncreaseUserVA element in BCDEdit.
I supose user trying to access the BIOS from the opearation system don't heard about the /3GB parameter and don't ask how to use more memory in applications but his question is about the Installed memory RAM in Control Panel\System and in this case my answer is more than possible. By the way even in a 64 bit system the graphic adapter may steal the memory in the same manner.