Vista - Vista/XP 64 - better RAM utilization?

Hello,

I have read a number of threads on various forums regarding the fact that XP/Vista 64 and other 64-bit OS's can, in some cases and with some tinkering, access more RAM than the 32-bit versions. There must be a million sites out there explaining why the 32-bit versions cannot access more than around 2.5 or 3 gb. I am yet to find a site, though, that demonstrates objective performance improvements in the 64-bit versions as a result of adding additional RAM - more than, say, 3 or 4 gb. Has anyone done any objective comparisons or observed any measurable improvements with the 64-bit operating systems by using addtional RAM above what can be seen in 32 bit versions? I am using 2 gb of RAM and I know I may get a slight improvement with an additional 1gb in 32-bit versions, but what about going up to,say, 8 gb or more in 64-bit versions?

"Rick Rogers" <rick@xxxxxx> schreef in bericht
news:ufdRa8UHKHA.1988@xxxxxxWith 64 bit Windows each 32 bit program can use up to 4GB address space.
For compatibility reasons programs must be marked to use more then 2GB (the
same is true on 32 bit windows).

I don't know wat you mean by bumping out. Addresses are local to a process
and you can have multiple 32 bit programs running at the same time, that use
4GB of memory each (and without swapping if you have enough RAM on your
system).

Windows also uses RAM for caching files. So even if the active programs
don't use more then 3Gb, performance can be increased by using the extra
memory for caching.

Greetings,
Hans.

Thanks for the replies. I was beginning to assume what Rick had said. I would like to know if anyone has actually measured the benefits of increased RAM when multitasking or increasing cache size in 64-bit compared to 32-bit. I'm wondering, for example, how much faster tasks basic tasks would be with background video encoding in 64-bit Vista or XP compared to 2 or 3 gb in 32-bit versions. I'm using a Pentium D 3.4 GHz processor on an Asus P5B-VM motherboard. Right now I'm lucky to be able to do anything else while video encoding and burning without risking errors or crashes. My 64-bit systems seem to be working better at the moment, but I suspect it's only because there is more disk space on the latter partitions. I haven't tried additional RAM above 3gb.