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The 2 GB limit refers to a physical memory barrier for a process running on a 32-bit operating system, which can only use a maximum of 2 GB of memory. [1] The problem mainly affects 32-bit versions of operating systems like Microsoft Windows and Linux, although some variants of the latter can overcome this barrier. [2]
Many 32-bit computers have 32 physical address bits and are thus limited to 4 GiB (2 32 words) of memory. [3] [4] x86 processors prior to the Pentium Pro have 32 or fewer physical address bits; however, most x86 processors since the Pentium Pro, which was first sold in 1995, have the Physical Address Extension (PAE) mechanism, [5]: 445 which allows addressing up to 64 GiB (2 36 words) of memory.
Limits on physical memory for 32-bit platforms also depend on the presence and use of Physical Address Extension (PAE), which allows 32-bit systems to use more than 4 GB of physical memory. PAE and 64-bit systems may be able to address up to the full address space of the x86 processor.
However, "client" versions of 32-bit Windows (Windows XP SP2 and later, Windows Vista, Windows 7) limit physical address space to the first 4 GB for driver compatibility [16] even though these versions do run in PAE mode if NX support is enabled. Windows 8 and later releases will only run on processors which support PAE, in addition to NX and SSE2.
Toggle Physical memory limits subsection. 5.1 Windows. 5.2 Windows NT. 6 Security ... Super VGA (800x600), 32-bit color Windows Server 2016: 1.4 GHz 64-bit processor ...
A 32-bit register can store 2 32 different values. The range of integer values that can be stored in 32 bits depends on the integer representation used. With the two most common representations, the range is 0 through 4,294,967,295 (2 32 − 1) for representation as an binary number, and −2,147,483,648 (−2 31) through 2,147,483,647 (2 31 − 1) for representation as two's complement.
A floating-point variable can represent a wider range of numbers than a fixed-point variable of the same bit width at the cost of precision. A signed 32-bit integer variable has a maximum value of 2 31 − 1 = 2,147,483,647, whereas an IEEE 754 32-bit base-2 floating-point variable has a maximum value of (2 − 2 −23) × 2 127 ≈ 3.4028235 ...
The primary benefit of moving to 64-bit is the increase in the maximum allocatable random-access memory (RAM). 32-bit editions of Windows XP are limited to a total of 4 gigabytes. Although the theoretical memory limit of a 64-bit computer is about 16 exabytes (17.1 billion gigabytes), Windows XP x64 is limited to 128 GB of physical memory and ...