What happens if you install a 2 GB video card on a 32-bit OS?

Discussion in 'Operating Systems' started by heymian, Sep 15, 2013.

  1. heymian

    heymian Guest

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    Running with 4 GB of main memory. Since 32-bit OS'es can only "see" 4096 MB, half of that would be reserved for the video card. An additional portion would be reserved for other system devices. Which means you would actually have less than 2 GB of actual system memory allocated to applications. Is my understanding correct?
     
  2. BarryB

    BarryB Guest

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    If your video card is a 670 like in your sig, then you'll still have 4GB available to the system and the video card will have the full 2GB available, it won't 'take' 2GB from your system RAM.
     
  3. thatguy91

    thatguy91 Guest

    Pretty much, in any case nobody should be using a 32-bit OS on a modern system :).
     
  4. thatguy91

    thatguy91 Guest

    No, on a 32-bit OS you will not have 4GB system RAM and full 2GB of video RAM!
     

  5. Agonist

    Agonist Ancient Guru

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    Some people dual boot. Like me, I run xp sp3 32bit for a few games and certian programs that just will not work in win 7x64.
     
  6. IcE

    IcE Don Snow

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    I don't think you'll have the full 4GB, but you won't have 2GB of available RAM either. I think the limit for how much the system has to reserve to address the GPU correctly is 5-700mb.
     
  7. thatguy91

    thatguy91 Guest

    It thought it depended on the video card memory size. When the issue first sprung up (people only having 3.3GB etc) they were running 512MB cards. I think with a 2GB card in some way, shape or form, your system will still be limited to 4GB, Even if it means 2.7GB system, 1GB video, plus the remaining requirements.
     
  8. Pill Monster

    Pill Monster Banned

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    Yes he will. Video memory does not affect the amount of system memory available to the OS due to AWE/PAE.

    Edit:- I'm talking about discrete video cards, not integrated GPU's....also remapping must be enabled in BIOS.
     
    Last edited: Sep 15, 2013
  9. thatguy91

    thatguy91 Guest

  10. jbmcmillan

    jbmcmillan Guest

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    Yes it depends on all the hardware installed as 32 bit can only address 4GB of ram.Ram available to the operating system will vary according to hardware that needs an address and the video card is just another piece of hardware..
     

  11. Pill Monster

    Pill Monster Banned

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    Well I don't see anything which contradicts what I said in my post....

    Btw where in that blog does Mark mention anything about discrete video memory?
     
  12. dsbig

    dsbig Ancient Guru

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    I know in my windows xp 32bit install I only have 3.3gb of memory... not 4gb
     
  13. Extraordinary

    Extraordinary Guest

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    32bit OSs only have an issue addressing 4GB+ system RAM - the amount of VRAM on a GPU does not affect that

    if you have a 2GB GPU, you will still have the same amount of system RAM as you would without the GPU
     
  14. sykozis

    sykozis Ancient Guru

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    The 4GB restriction is an artificial limitation. To allow support for more than 4GB on 32bit OS's, Microsoft would have to pay an additional licensing fee. To avoid that licensing fee, MS restrictions support to 4GB on most 32bit versions of Windows. Windows Server x86 Enterprise and Datacenter editions both support up to 64GB of RAM.

    As for graphics cards...
    Source: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778.aspx
     
  15. mbk1969

    mbk1969 Ancient Guru

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    Suspect that video frame buffer should be mapped so its size decreases available amount of RAM but not overall size of videocard`s memory.
     

  16. heymian

    heymian Guest

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    So according to the blog over on technet, my understanding is correct. The actual amount varies depending on the system. With a 1 GB video card dual booting into 32-bit WinXP, it shows 3.3 GB out of 4 GB of system memory available. So that's roughly an 800 MB chunk being taken out by the video card and other devices/resources. So with a 2 GB video card, that should still leave over 2 GB of system memory available for applications, which should be enough. Thank you all for your insight.
     
  17. Extraordinary

    Extraordinary Guest

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    System RAM is showing 3.3GB because it is 32bit OS, not because of the GPU VRAM - unless it is an onboard GPU
     
  18. heymian

    heymian Guest

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    According to the above mentioned article, this is incorrect (if I'm understanding it right).
     
  19. sykozis

    sykozis Ancient Guru

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    Read this....
    Source: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778.aspx
     
  20. Extraordinary

    Extraordinary Guest

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    I've just installed 32bit XP into VMWare, I gave it 4GB RAM

    XP reports 3GB RAM
    iirc VMWare gives something like a 64MB GPU
    My host system has a 2GB GPU
     

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