Utility to let you use 3GB in XP

Cheez

Moderator
The quote from their website says it all. I can't say it better. Anybody keen to give it a go and see if it makes any difference?

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"Although the maximum addressable memory in the 32-bit world is 4GB every process running in 32-bit Windows XP normally have access to at the most 2GB us memory for its own use not matter how much RAM memory there is in the machine as the other 2GB is locked away for the systems' internal use. The scenario in the music world where we're likely to encounter this limit is when using software samplers and plugin hosts hosting software samplers where lots of data needs to be loaded into RAM memory. Microsoft also acknowledged this problem and created a way to circumvent this problem, at least partially. By using a combination of an option in the boot configuration and an application capable of detecting this option if possible to push the limit to 3GB thus leaving 1GB to the system.

The boot option is easy to set by editing a simple file, but the problem is that not all applications we're using have support for the option. Due to the ingenious design of this feature however it's possible to make any application aware of this option without having access to the source code or having to rebuild the application.

There are a couple of tools out there that are capable of doing this, but they are all directed to developers and not end-users as end-users are not normally supposed to fiddle with these things. Nothing could be more wrong when it comes to the memory hungry music community! In order to provide an easy-to-use tool which contains some additional safety measures I wrote LaaTiDo, the LargeAddressAware Editor."

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Link: http://www.musikbanken.se/TechLaaTiDo.aspx
 
6GB will not do anything. The max for xp is 4GB after using the switch - of which the max of 3GB can be accessed. You'll be wasting the other 2GB.

The simplest test - you should be able to load more plugins.
 
i know, I got xp64 also dual boot.

currently my xp 32 only detects 1.99gb of ram.

i guess i can't test it until i install cubase or something cos usually my cool edit will give way before I even use up all the ram lol. yeah i'll give a shot or recommend to my friends to test it.
 
Oh. Then you just max it out to 8GB for your xp64.

Don't forget you have to do that /3GB switch / PAE stuff to get more than 2GB in your XP. Then run the utility to enable your software to actually utilise more than 2GB. Or maybe the utility also has the function to do the switch/PAE change. Need to check it out.
 
hi guys, currently my XP can detect 3 + GB of RAM altho i have 4 GB installed. this switch thing you speak of, grateful if someone could clarify. Does it mean that currently, my XP is only using 2GB of my 4GB Ram for my plugs and soft synths? but with the suggested coding, my XP can use 3GB instead? thanks!
 
depending on your hardware used etc even if no PCI slots are used, the memory usage is ranged from 2.75gb (this's mine despite 6gb ram) to 3gb+.
so if you're already at 3gb plus you wouldn't need it right?
 
Yes fibredrive, you're right. XP only addresses 2GB. With the /3GB switch, you push it to 3GB and 1GB for your OS (ie if you have 4GB RAM). But the problem is that even though your XP will show you have 3GB of memory, your software will not be able to utilise the 3rd GB (ie the extra 1GB). It can only utilise to the max of 2GB. You'll need to use the utility to enable your software to utilise the extra 1GB (ie up to 3GB).
 
Let us know! I've switched over to the dreaded Vista, so I can't try it anymore... The headache it is giving me makes me wonder if I should switch back to XP. But that's another story...
 
Yes and no. Vista gives you up to 4GB (instead of 2GB in XP) without any switch/PAE changes. But after taking up resources reserved for the OS/graphics card etc, you'll be left with about 3.25 GB (average). So that's not much more than XP. But Vista also takes up more CPU resources than XP. After balancing CPU/RAM usage, Vista can become slower than XP.

The only way to REALLY get more RAM is to go 64-bit. Then the next question is whether to go XP64 or Vista 64. I went for Vista 64 because I'm waiting for Kontakt 3.1 upgrade to be released, which will only work on a Vista 64 and not on XP64. Otherwise, I would prefer XP anytime to Vista. It gave me quite a bit of headache. At least my machine is more stable than it was last week, and it's getting there...wait, oops. That's another thread...
 
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