Hello Everyone

I have been doing a lot of research and forum posting regarding an upgrade to my system I am looking to do. Basically at the moment I have two gigs of RAM and want to upgrade to four. However, I am currently only running 32-bit Vista.

I have read in several places that Vista-32 SP1 will "recognize" the full 4GB of RAM, but will not actually utilize the whole 4GB. Is this true? I have also read that there are certain ways to "force" Vista into using the full 4GB. Is this really possible?

One option is of course to purchase Vista 64-bit but after already buying 32-bit I don't really want to spend another $200. Basically what I'm asking, is it really necessary to upgrade to 64-bit Vista in order to get the use out of my 4 gigs of RAM? It seems to be a rather gray area. Any advice would be appreciated!

You can install the 4 gig of ram under Vista 32 and it will see it, but it can't utilize all of it. A 32 bit OS can only use 4 gig of memory total, so from the four gig of ram, you have to subtract however much your video card uses, plus a bit for the rest of the hardware, ending up leaving you with someplace between 3.2 to 3.5 gig that you can address. There are a couple ways to increase the amount of ram that a 32 bit OS can use, but they are very limited in real function.

The best course is to upgrade to Vista 64. It shouldn't cost $200 to do that, as Vista has come down a long way in price over what it originally was priced. In fact, you can buy a whole new Vista 64 Ultimate for less than $200 now http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6832116493 The cost to upgrade from 32 bit to 64 bit shouldn't be all that expensive.

Are you aware that there is a search feature on this forum. You probably are the 500th person to ask this question.

If you would like to upgrade to 4 Gigs of ram, its very simple to do so. While what you read is true. Vista 32bit will recognize all 4 gigs of ram, it will only actually use about3.3-3.6 gb of it. (depending on video ram ext.). And its NOT worth it to spend another 100 dollars and upgrande to 64 bit just for those few extra mb. unless you plan on getting more than 4gb (8gb+).

In short: NO its not necessary to get vista 64bit.

You will need a 64 bit version to use all 4GB. But You don't need to buy it. You can order 64 bit DVD from microsoft at cost of disk and postage and use it with existing licence. But there is not much point unless You go for 6 or 8GB.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvi [...] fault.mspx to order 64bit DVD or You can borrow it from somebody and use with Your own license key.

The "force" rumour you've heard doesn't apply to Vista. Microsoft doesn't want to break the 4G-barrier in Vista due to problems with certain drivers.

just to reiterate- if you own a vista 32 liscence all you have to do is go to MS and request the disks- postage and handling. Bw awarwe though that some games and such dont like vista 64 so might wanna wait and do more research.

cheers

At one time there was a way to make XP 32 use all 4 gig. It was stopped by MS. Some 32 bit OS can use more than 4 gig RAM, sort of, Server 2003, some Linux for example. AFAIK this was never the case with Vista though some people tell you that by enabling PAE you can do it. You can't.

Please forgive my elementary question. My knowledge is limited.
I want to build another computer. I am undecided between 32 or 64 bit Vista. Is there any downside to installing 64 bit? Will 32 bit applications work under a 64 bit operating system.

Thanks in advance

vista 64 will run the majority of 32 bit programs. I say the pros with 64bit outwiegh the cons. vista keys are interchangable so if you don't like 64 bit borrow a friends disk and go to 32. I've been using 64 bit for some time i find no real issues with it running todays programms.

Thank you for your reply

3.3 gb is definitely not too bad. I guess a follow-up question would be, performance wise, would Vista-64 manage the use of that RAM a lot better than Vista-32?

the performance difference is not monumental - unless you are really looking for it and you are running a very tweak system its really not going to be that noticeable.

I've used both, I don't see a lot of difference - the only real difference is 64bit vista doesn't support some older apps that 32bit might

I mean like, you can probably find some technical information that will show you what situations either OS is better but for the sake of empyricals, you probably wont' see a difference.

If you have to choose between buying either OS - i'd get 64 bit just because (eventually) apps will be designed with 64 bit in mind more often.

I'm running a laptop with a Core Duo (I'm kicking myself for not getting Core 2 Duo since it was the same price but only 1.5 Ghz instead of 2 Ghz) that came with 1 GB of RAM which I upgraded to 4 GB.

To answer your question you could switch to Vista 64 bit but the jump from 2 GB to 4 GB is not as huge as the jump from 1 GB to 2 GB.

I would look at it this way, if it costs me nothing (asides from the cost of the RAM) then I would definitely switch to Vista 64. People here have said the CD keys can be used for both 32 and 64 which would be good. If it actually costs something you need to decide if that is worth it for you or not.

A million people can give you their point of view and their experience, but in the end you need to decide what works best for your individual situation.

These are perhaps the best words in this entire thread. Even if you have Vista, if all you do is surf the net, download, and perhaps play the occasional Popcap game, then 2GBs is more then enough. If however you have a nice quad core CPU and an 8800GTS 512MB video card and are finding that your game of Supreme Commander with 4 opponents is going kind of slow after awhile, then get the 4GBs.

This only applies to Retail purchaced versions.

Versions that are Vista 32bit upgrades from XP or OEM are excluded.

4GB of RAM in dual channel is WAY BETTER than 2BG in dual channel. Absolutely use 4GB if you got it.