Overon wrote on Dec 21, 2011, 00:36:
Large Address Aware, is that necessary for a 64 bit Windows system? I mean do you need to have that on even on a 64 bit Windows system?
No, it will work on a 32bit OS too...
A 32-bit Windows OS can only address 4GB of memory. (Non-server OS)
A 32-bit Windows Application (process) can only utilize a maximum 2GB of memory. Memory in the other 2GB is reserved for the OS and Drivers (and other processes) within the 4GB limit.
A 32-bit Windows Application (process) on a 64-Bit OS can STILL only utilize 2GB of memory.
So, if you have 4GB of RAM, and a 32-bit OS, and a 32-Bit Application with LAA... the app essentially will be abe to also use whatever is left over between 2GB and whatever is reserved for the OS and Drivers. (Usually around 3.2 GB, total available)
The same thing (4GB of RAM) on a 64-bit OS, and a 32-Bit Application with LAA.. would basically yield nearly the same results. The Application would be able to utilize around 3.2 GB.
A 64-bit OS with more than 4GB, say 8GB, and a 32-Bit Application with LAA... the Application should be able to use up to a full 4GB, and OS, Drivers, and other processes would be in loaded in the rest of the Memory.
A 64-Bit OS with a 64-Bit Application... well, the application can obviously address a hell of lot more than 4GB.
The more that can be loaded into RAM, the better... RAM is a couple thousand times faster than a Hard drive, which is why games stutter when they swap to the page file on the hard disk (virtual memory), because they are running out of RAM.
Also, remember there's other things running in the background... Steam, for instance. or you might have a security product, or teamspeak / ventrillo, etc. etc.
This comment was edited on Dec 21, 2011, 01:30.
Get your games from GOG DAMMIT!