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Notebook Makers Moving to 4 GB Memory As Standard
akintayo writes "Digitimes reports that first-tier notebook manufacturers are increasing the standard installed memory from the current 1 GB to 4GB. They claim the move is an attempt to shore up the costs of DRAM chips, which are currently depressed because of a glut in market. The glut is supposedly due to increased manufacturing capacity and the slow adoption of Microsoft's Vista operating system. The proposed move is especially interesting, given that 32-bit Vista and XP cannot access 4 GB of memory. They have a practical 3.1 — 3.3 GB limit. With Vista SP1 it seems that Microsoft has decided to fix the problem by reporting the installed memory rather than the available memory."
Because OS X Leopard CAN access 4GB of RAM. Let's see if Apple also joins the fray. Then again, 4GB is way too much, because after all 640KB should be enough for everyone.
for obvious reasons :D
:D
Nice "fix" though, then people can keep adding memory and think it helps
What an ingenious solution! No wonder Microsoft is the leading innovator in IT! That's SO innovative it makes me sick. It's hard enough trying to explain to customers why they shouldn't waste their money on 4GB of memory and a 1GB video card only to lose a quarter of it in real life, now the OS is trying actively trying to make me look like a liar too.
'I want one of those to run pine and vi!'
OEMs releasing computers with 4GB of memory standard? Finally, we have machines that'll be able to run emacs...
Stop with the kludges and force the developers along. 32 bit came with the 386 era and lasted a good while - a very good run indeed. 64 bit would last beyond our lifetimes anyway, I doubt we will even come close to the limits of addressable memory there (hopefully this isn't the new 640k comment) -- so there is no point in stalling it indefinitely.
Its pathetic how poorly Microsoft has moved towards 64 Bit vs. Other OS's out there...
Solaris Way Back in the 90's with Solaris 7 I think... Had 64 bit support with perfect 32 bit
support of backwards compatability.
OS X goes a step further one OS Package and support for PowerPC, 32 Bit and 64 Bit and Intel 32 Bit
and 64 Bit. And appliactions seem to work for all of theme for the most parts (with the ovious
exceptions of apps that require the advanced features of the newer Chips.
Reporting that you have 4 Gigs installed is not a real feature it just makes it easier for the
hardware companies to scam people saying here buy this with 4 Gigs of Ram and the OS says there is 4
GIgss of Ram while it only supports 3. I would be Pissed If I knew I couldn't access all my RAM.
Say I had VMWare on my Laptop and I allocated a VM with 2 Gigs and an other with 1.5 Gig and ran both
figuring that I had 4 Gigs of Ram available. I would be annoyed that I couldn't run both of my VMs
and Not knowing seeing that it supports 4 gigs of RAM I would want to know who is taking up 512 Megs
of Active Ram. I could blame Windows for being more of a memory hog. I could blame VMWare for sucking
up all the extra memory to run. But the fault is the Hardware Manufacutre put more ram then the
PC with the preinstalled Software can handle to make a few bucks and Microsoft just plays in their
hand making everything look hunky dory.
If it says you have 4 Gigs install It should also say there are 3.3 Gigs that can be access
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
to fix the problem by reporting the installed memory rather than the available memory
:P
I wouldn't have expected any other `solution' from MS
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
In another few years, I might be able to run Eclipse.
From the summary: "They claim the move is an attempt to shore up the costs of DRAM chips, which are currently depressed because of a glut in market."
The article says: "While first-tier notebook vendors such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Toshiba are planning to roll out 4GB notebooks starting from the first quarter of 2008, the move is expected to give a boost to the DRAM market, according to memory module makers."
The article does not say that this is a deliberate attempt to increase DRAM price. And if it was, wouldn't it be illegal?
It sounds like they should be making wiis and not memory. Solve a few problems at once
Check out my sysadmin blog!
My Laptop uses the ram as video memory, if they use 256/512 MB as video ram it is not that much more than the maximum allowed by 32bit operating systems.
Ha, "old"... Modern CPUs have a bigger cache than the entire memory of my first computer and I'm only just 28!
32-bit Linux has similar limitations, too. OS needs to reserve *some* addresses to access other hardware such as CPU registers, PCI cards, etc. Since 32-bit CPUs can only count up to 2^32, it cannot address all the locations in RAM. This is definitely not just Microsoft.... :-)
Or at least, supervision by people who know how computers work? 4GB is perfectly sensible for a 32-bit x86; the virtual address space is only 4GB, but the physical address spaces is larger (at least 36 bits on all popular processors). Yes, that means it's awkward to use more than 4GB in a single application, but so what? Using more than 4GB across the system is perfectly transparent.
Also, what's with slamming Microsoft over the "slow" transition to 64-bit? 64-bit XP has been out for, like, three years now. It runs 32-bit applications, because the x64 architecture makes it so ridiculously easy you'd have to intentionally break it. 64-bit Linux does the same, because it takes, like, a line of code to do so. If software makers aren't producing 32-bit apps, it's probably because their customers haven't demanded they do so yet; and the customers probably haven't demanded it because it's unusual for a single application to need 4GB of RAM. Finally, those applications that can frequently use gigondo amounts of RAM in a single virtual address space (e.g., Oracle) for the most part had 64-bit binaries available right out of the gate.
Laptops, which have been a nice fat cash cow to OEMs, are steadily becoming cheaper and cheaper. Nowadays, we have retailers selling laptops for about 500 euros with specs that a couple of year ago were selling for a lot more than 1500 euros. A while back the average laptop price tag was about 1200 euros and nowadays it went down to 800 euros. That's a heck of a revenue cut.
So the OEMs are forced to add another fancy selling point, like upgrading the specs once again, in order to keep making the big bucks. They don't give a damn if it brings any added value to the product or if it even functions properly. What matters is some fancy little side remark on the laptop's brochure that makes their fancy little product be picked by the vast hordes of consuming sheep. Who cares if it makes sense or if it's even usable. What's important is that them flock falls for that "OMG! IT'S N+1!!!" and promptly spend their cash, specially for the "it's bigger than my neighbour's" bragging rights.
This sort of thing isn't exactly new. In fact, it's the repeat of another similar marketing push, which was the "32-to-64bit" campaign. The fancy stickers advertising the new and improved 64bit 'puters for the "OMG IT'S TWICE THE BITS!!" effect were all over the place, which earned quite a few hardware sales. Yet, the fact is that the brand new 64-bit 'puter could only run on the 32-bit legacy mode, as they were shipped with a 32-bit operating system and the OEMs shipped hardware without ever thinking on releasing 64-bit drivers or even releasing the hardware specs.
So those OEMs will, once again, sell hardware that will not be usable by the user, at least as advertised. It doesn't matter to them. The only thing that matters is the sales revenue, specially in this day and age where we are starting to see sub-300 euro hardware. And screw the consumer.
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
Better stop there before I start talking about paper bags in the middle of the street - you youngsters don't know what life is!
In all fairness 512meg is a reasonable about for XP, 1gig however is better. I don't see your average joe 6-pack user benefiting from more than 2gigs.
:)
After all the auto-updating software for their printer, mouse, keyboard, webcam, etc.; all the spyware, adware, trojans; and all the extra applications like AIM, anti-virus, anti-malware, non-driver device software (syncing, calling home, etc.), and media software playing music in the background, I can see joe 6-pack user making use of more than 2 gigs if he actually wants to do something with his computer.
> Since 4GB is Vista's supposed "sweet spot"
As the article says, 4 GB is the maximum that Vista supports. Calling that the sweet spot is like saying that it needs more memory than it supports.
How many Microsoft engineers does it take to change a light bulb?
None. Microsoft just redefines darkness as the standard.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Well back in my day we shifted disks on an abacus and made the beeping noises ourselves! :)
Windows 32-bit operating systems really do not play well with more than 3Gb of memory. Check out what Microsoft says about it.
The address space you'd normally use to address memory beyond 3.5gigs (or thereabouts) is reassigned for talking to other stuff. It's a simple 32bit limitation - can't only be talking to the RAM after all. As others have pointed out throughout this thread, the problem does not exist in 64bit architectures.
5 years ago, nobody would have thought that we'd run into this problem at all. Remember those times? Everybody and their mum was just about getting ready to jump onto the 64Bit bandwagon with AMD charging in front. And then, while nobody (especially not AMD) was paying attention, we kinda veered off-course into a multi-core world instead and all of a sudden, people stopped caring about 64bit. After all, you had a larger net performance gain from upgrading to 2 32Bit cores than to one 64Bit one. And now, we're finally running out of address space.
The trouble is that in contemporary chipsets in 32-bit mode the upper 1G or so of physical memory overlaps with the address space for the PCI bus.
Error: password can't contain reverse spelling of ancient Chinese emperor
I'm guessing this is Moore's law in action, in that the memory chips have scaled. Notebook motherboard space hasn't increased, so they probably aren't increasing the number of chips, but going to the next gen of memory chips.
Remember that the 3.2-3.3 GB limit is not imposed solely on the RAM itself. The computer as a whole only has a maximum number of addressable "points." I believe that 32 bit Windows or Linux allows for a maximum number of addresses around 4 GB, so you'd think that you could use 4 GB of RAM.
Wait a moment and think it out.
Estimate that components such as your processor caches, motherboard I/O destinations, Network cards, CD/DVD drive will take up about 1/2 GB of the theoretical 4 GB. These MUST have addresses or they cannot function.
Now add in all of your vRAM (the amount of ram on your video card), that ram will also need a set of addresses. We'll estimate 256 MB of vRAM.
So now you've taken your theoretical 4 GB of ram space, subtracted 512 MB for essential system components needing addresses, subtracted 256 MB of vRAM on your video card needing addresses. So, total, you've just taken away 768 MB of your theoretical RAM limit. 4 GB (Theoretical limit) - 768 MB (used addresses by components and video card memory) = 3.25 GB of RAM. Systems with 512MBs of vRam have a 3GB limit for memory.
Now consider the slap in the face SLI 8800 GTX's would be to system addressing. They take up 768 MB of vRAM each. So that is 1536 MB of vRAM total. Now you are probably down to something like 2GB of RAM addresses available for the system.
Heh. So the point is, the world NEEDS to get it's butt over to 64-bit sometime soon. Gamers are going to start to feel the burn soon when suddenly they have no more RAM to play with while SLIing.
This applies to both Windows and Linux. 64-Bit doesn't have this limitation. The only ones implying it is a Windows problem is those like Twitter the Troll and Communist Zonk.
Yes it is.
The Linux kernel devs solved this back in 2004.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
How many Linux engineers does it take to change a light bulb?
None. Linux lightbulbs last forever. They don't need to be changed.
It appears you failed to notice that the architectures of AMD's and Intel's multi-core processors are both x86-64. That means that we are upgrading to two 64-bit cores.
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
Surely you should say "There's very little in this world...". Otherwise all /.ers would have girlfriends.
Nothing new here. Ubuntu 7.10 32-bit -- the latest shipping version -- only supports 3.3 Gb or so. They haven't bothered to turn on BigMem in the kernel. I upgraded two desktops and one laptop last week, all to 4 Gb of RAM, and was seriously disappointed when the BIOS showed 4 Gb but Ubuntu did NOT.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Well, if your field of study was French Revolution or Mayan history, I bet you'd find it pretty useful.
Your ad could be here!
Also note that there's another config option that allows one to change that 3G/1G split for NOHIGHMEM mode, if desired. It's normally hidden, but available if one activates EXPERIMENTAL and I believe EMBEDDED.
That 3-level paging above 4 gig is a bit of a performance hit, as the kernel shifts its 4 gig window around in that 64 gig frame, tho if one runs the sort of apps that actually use that sort of memory, it's less of a performance hit than going to swap would be. Still, going 64-bit Linux isn't such a big deal any more, if your CPU supports it, and it's MUCH more efficient since multiple terabytes of memory can be directly accessed.
There's another factor at play here as well, however, and this applies to ALL OSs on 32-bit x86 and most or all on 64-bit x86 as well. It's a PCI hardware issue more than a software issue. Many old PCI devices were designed for 32-bit only operation, and their hardware can't address memory above the 32-bit 4 gig memory barrier. When memory was running less than a gig, this didn't matter much, and it became customary to reserve the virtual space at the top of the 32-bit address pool, 3.5-4 GB, for PCI device i/o access. As real memory expanded into that area, it runs into the reserved area, and the real memory behind it can't ordinarily be directly accessed.
Folks who've been around for awhile will likely recall a similar issue back at the 1 MB barrier, and how it was resolved using a "memory hole". The same technique is used here. With a BIOS setup to do so, one can configure a "memory hole" at the 3.5-4GB location, and the BIOS will remap the affected memory up above the 4 GB barrier.
This explains the complaints about Apple and MS platforms also having 4 GB look like 3 or 3.5 GB. I'm not sure if their 32-bit kernels can cope with that remapping or not -- they won't be able to if they can't address more than the 4 gigs anyway, but even if they can, the BIOS must be configured to map the hole as well.
Meanwhile, while addressing memory above the 4 gig line shouldn't be a problem for 64-bit kernels, the BIOS must still be able to do the remapping as well -- and the kernel must understand and deal with the hole. 64-bit Linux has suitable config options to do so, but I've not the foggiest how binary platform systems shipping a single binary kernel for all users deals with this. Primarily binary Linux distributions generally ship a number of different kernels, including an enterprise
Duncan
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master,
and if you use the program, he is your master."
R Stallman
Really? Linux works flawlessly in all my light sockets. I guess the system whereby engineers ask for specs from the people who want to sell them light sockets gets the job done.
-FL
The summary claims that the *notebook manufacturers* are deliberately raising the price of DRAM chips.
First, if they are doing that, they are benefiting the DRAM manufacturers, so they must have an agreement with them. I am not sure this would be legal.
Second, a single notebook manufacturer would hardly have the market power to increase DRAM prices. Such a move would have to be coordinated among several manufacturers, and I doubt very much that would be legal.
AMD and Intel both went with AMD's x86_64 architecture, back in the Pentium 4 days, before any multi-core x86 parts existed. In fact, the first multi-core x86 parts were x86_64 through and through, not any less capable of running 64-bit applications than the single core.
I'm guessing you are confused because of the Intel Core Duo line that was prominent before Core 2 released. The Intel Core line was released after 64-bit P4s not because of inherent multi-core advantages, but because they realized how the NetBurst architecture was not working out, particularly in low TDP mandated environments like laptops (where they currently were using Pentium-M now, derived from Pentium-III). They released Core in an effort to have a more consistant offering, with lower TDP and better per-clock performance, forsaking 64-bit until Core 2 (except the Xeon family, which stuck with NetBurst until 64-bit was available via Core 2). It had nothing to do with multi-core and would have played out that exact same way if it was just single cores.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
25 watts is good enough for anybody!
See Raymond Chen's explanation:
http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2006/08/14/699521.aspx
Here's an equally blunt response for you: You're wrong, 32-bit OSes can access up to 64GiB of RAM using a feature called PAE. It's a bit of a hack and has some downsides - for example, no individual 32-bit program can access more than 4GiB, and some drivers aren't compatible with it (which is why it isn't enabled by default in client versions of Windows). However, the hardware has been capable of it since the Pentium Pro CPUs (mid 90s)
In reference to the GP, there are typically two variants of standard Linux kernels available for a x86 system: Default (or similar) and Big, BigSMP, or similar. The SMP stands for Symmetric MultiProcessing (ability to use multiple CPUs, CPU cores, execution paths, etc.) and has been integrated into the Default kernel for some time now. The "big" kernels also support PAE. This is not in the default due, I believe, to the risk that some kernel modules such as drivers don't handle PAE correctly (the Wikipedia page also mentions that PAE-enabled kernels won't run on non-PAE-capable CPUs, though this is hardly a concern on any modern machine).
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...