PAE - expanded memory for the C21, if only MS would let you use it

[liam_on_linux]

64-bit operating systems are coming in and are rapidly replacing 32-bit ones as the platforms of choice. The 32-bit edition of Windows 7 is a bit of a minority choice and the 32-bit version of Windows 8 will be more so

Comments

[steer]

Thanks for this one Liam. I did not actually know this about the graphics memory. I'd assumed it was unaddressable from the OS and presented at only an abstract layer. "Here graphics card, have a texture map, put it somewhere!" I didn't realise it was directly OS addressable. I might do some reconfiguring as a result.

This was a bit of a black art, but one of which I was a past master, if I say so myself. I could find every tiny unused block, map it and fill it with some tiny fragment of DOS and keep all 640KB of conventional memory free for apps.

Ah... I remember spending a lot of time hand crafting (perhaps hand-crufting) such things. My DOS machine circa 1995 would boot up with about 5 options depending on exactly where I wanted the memory to be... different applications had different requirements. For some of them you needed every byte free and any TSR stuff would muck it up. For some you needed no messing about with extended memory or they would just crash. As you say, black art.

[liam_on_linux]

:¬)

I pretty much only dealt with business computers & multimedia or games were very rarely an issue, so I usually had one finely-tuned setup that coped with everything - but I did use the menus and multiconfig stuff occasionally. Baroque, and not in a good way. I shudder at the memory.

[anonymous]

It's not really Microsoft's fault, drivers on the desktop platforms have never been certified for PAE operation, where they can be loaded in strange places due to the old school return of segmentation.

That said, enjoy....

http://www.overclock.net/t/596932/guide-make-32-bit-os-support-128gb-of-ram

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148572

http://www.adminsehow.com/2011/03/windows-7-32-bit-pae-patch/

greg

[liam_on_linux]

Oh cool! I did not know that was possible!

[vin_petrol]

I once used the rather obscure Windows/386, which allowed you to pretty much not worry about all this, as each DOS application got its own virtual "DOS box" (if you'll allow me the expression). I have a vague memory of using a PC with 2 MB of RAM and running three hefty DOS applications in parallel, each in their own window. It was surprisingly not-crap for its time.

[liam_on_linux]

Very minimal experience with Win2/386, but yes, agreed.

Win2 with QEMM386 underneath (and thus lots of LIM4 EMS) could multitask DOS surprisingly well in pure software, without using the virtual 386 features. Not terribly robust, but it did work. DESQview did it better, though. :¬)