Here’s the real dirt:
This is wrong: As far as 32-bit Vista is concerned, the world ends at 4,096 megabytes… the Windows memory manager is limited to a 4 GB physical address space. Most of that address space is filled with RAM, but not all of it. Memory-mapped devices (such as your video card) will use some of that physical address space, as will the BIOS ROMs.
The problem is not in Windows memory manager, it’s in the hardware. Since the design of 32-bit based systems, the addressing ability of the majority of these systems was 4 gigabyte. Basically that all the physical space that was expected to be needed when the chips and chipsets were designed. So Windows and all other OSes were originally designed to meet this.
It’s not a dirty little secret either. It was in the design specs from day one.
What even makes matters worse, is that even if you do run a 64-bit OS, there is no guarantee the hardware will still allow access to a full 4 gig of memory. I’ve installed 64-bit Vista on some machines that had a 4 gig memory limit, to find out it was a hard limit and the system still did not allow access to the RAM underneath the video and other devices. It was a BIOS and chipset limit, not OS limit. As is with all other machines in 32-bits.
Here’s proof: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-cpu-history,1986-3.html
This is the specs for the original 386 chip from Intel. Memory address limit: 4096, 4 gigs! That is what Microsoft had to deal with, and it has stuck over the years. So blame Intel if you need to cast blame.
And it continued through the years:
486: 4 gig limit: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-cpu-history,1986-4.html
Pentium: 4 gig limit: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-cpu-history,1986-5.html
Pentium2 addressed 64 gig, but then Intel went back to 4 gig on the P3!!! http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-cpu-history,1986-7.html
Pentium 4: 4 gig limit: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-cpu-history,1986-10.html
This trend finally broke hard with the later versions of the P4 chips when they started to support 64-bits:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-cpu-history,1986-12.html
BUT! That was only in native 64-bit processing mode. When the chip was running in 32-bit mode it still could only access 4 gig.
SO WHY BLAME THIS ON VISTA!!! It’s not MS’s fault It was a trend started by Intel 15 years ago with the original 386 chip.
SO HOW TO FIX??? Stop using 32-bit OSes, and go full 64-bit. Eventually the market will get a clue and start supporting the consumers in their purchases of newer technology and move ahead in the field of larger memory addressing spaces.
