About 32 bit windows and 3.5 GB limit?

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Ashish Joseph

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Mar 17, 2014
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I have 32 bit windows 7 ultimate.
4 GB ddr3 ram
GTX 750 Ti 2 GB GDDR5(going to buy)
I know that 32 bit windows 7 can handle only 3.5 GB(or is it 3.25) ram.
Recently i read that that limit also counts Vram.
So, Will 3.5 Gb ram and 2 GB vram be available or only 1.5 GB ram and 2 gb vram?
If it is the latter, then upgrading to 64 bit would make a huge difference.
Will i miss something(Gaming and average use) if i go with windows 7 64 bit instead of 8.1? (I didn't like 8)
 
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synthaside
Yes ... the limit also includes Vram , or it used to when i last used a 32 bit OS ... which was back in the XP era , sorry Rdg any device that has memory eats into this address space and limits what is visible to a single application .

The memory limits for 32 bit are total available system memory , this is made up of RAM + VRAM + BIOS + anything else that would require non persistent storage space.

If your interested here's the math as to why this happens is because of binary math

Your Os is 32bit which means you can address 2 to the power 32 = 4,294,967,296 bytes
4,294,967,296 / (1,024 x 1,024) = 4,096 MB = 4GB

It's different for 64-bit:

2 to the power 64 = 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 18,446,744,073,709,551,616...
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synthaside

synthaside

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Yes ... the limit also includes Vram , or it used to when i last used a 32 bit OS ... which was back in the XP era , sorry Rdg any device that has memory eats into this address space and limits what is visible to a single application .

The memory limits for 32 bit are total available system memory , this is made up of RAM + VRAM + BIOS + anything else that would require non persistent storage space.

If your interested here's the math as to why this happens is because of binary math

Your Os is 32bit which means you can address 2 to the power 32 = 4,294,967,296 bytes
4,294,967,296 / (1,024 x 1,024) = 4,096 MB = 4GB

It's different for 64-bit:

2 to the power 64 = 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 / (1,024 x 1,024) = 16EB (exabytes)


There are some clever tricks to try to get around this ... but this is the realm of Server side tech / enthusiast concepts , why you can read all about on the Net if you so choose .

short answer yes you need a 64 bit Os ... in fact i've gotta ask ? why are you using a 64 bit OS ... if i recall windows 7 ultimate was selectable at install between 32 and 64 , with 64 being reccomended

The actual amount of memory being able to be addressed has go nothing to do with the RAM system of otherwise , its about how your machine can allocate resources around the entire system and address space IE room for instructions is a finite amount

 
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