Vista 64 compatibility

[Paul G]

I was one of those stupid people to fall for the Microsoft promises of Vista and DirectX 10. I have Vista 32 bit version, and despite having 4Gb of RAM inside, Vista only sees 2.8Gb!!!!

Naturally thinking this is a fault I followed up with the place I get my computer stuff and someone told me this is an age old issue, and even scorned me for asking. Has the world gone completely crazy? I mean, I know if you buy a 500Gb hard drive and get 450Gb, it's a bit disappointing but it's pretty damned close to what you bought. But losing over a gigabyte of RAM is infuriating.

Not only this, but I'm frequently getting Out of Memory errors, leaving me with little options. There's no point in sticking in more RAM, if Vista is already ignoring a good proportion of what I have. And from what I hear there's nothing wrong with the RAM.

So this leads to my question. I'm now seriously thinking of upgrading to Vista 64, which i understand does take full advantage of the memory I have installed. My concern is that I have several add-ons and I don't know if these will work with the 64 bit version.

If you have Vista 64 bit installed, please confirm if any of the following are incompatible. Thank you:

FSX SP2
Ultimate Terrain USA/Europe/Canada
HiFi Sim X-Graphics
GoFlight driver for radios, MCP etc
Phidget driver
FS2Phidget application
Level D 767 SP2

I have a load of scenery add-ons and a few additional aircraft, but the add-ons above are key to my system.

[Kennair]

Paul,

No 32bit operating system has ever been able to access more than 3gb of RAM, it's just a factor of it's memory addressing. When 32bit op systems were developed, 3gb of RAM was unheard of. But we all know what history does to computing.

So, to access your 4gb you will need a 64bit operationg system. Doesn't have to be Vista however as XP has a 64bit version as well. I recently went with Vista64 so that I could access 4gb of RAM so can offer some experience with some of your software.

FSX SP2 = Yes
UT goodies = I think so, don't run them but should work.
X-Graphics = Yes
GoFlight drivers = No (I think they state this on their website, however you may expect an upgrade to drivers in the future)
Phidget goodies = Don't know
Level D = Not sure but it's just an addon and all my addons work fine.

I can also tell you that FS9 and addon software all work fine as well if that's any help.

However, none of this explains your Out of Memory errors. 3gb of RAM is plenty to run your system and software. You may need to have it looked at.

Good luck,

Ken.

[Paul G]

Thanks Ken for your detailed response.

Potentially losing the GoFlights is a bit of a show-stopper, as I have the MCP Pro and love it. I am wondering whether I can get away with FSUIPC instead of the GoFlight configuration software, as I was able to reprogram some of the keys that FSX doesn't use to do other things, using FSUIPC. Is it possible to avoid using GF's own driver software if using FSUIPC?

[percy]

Hi
I have also had out of memory faults with both the vista 64 and vista 32 bit system, I have 4 gigs of memory. I installed vista update KB940105 and with both system the out of memory errors were resolved. I installed vista sp1 and now my system shows 4 gb of memory instead of 3 gb of memory.
percy.

[Paul G]

That's very interesting. Do you think Vista is just reporting that it sees this memory without being able to access all of it?

[percy]

That's very interesting. Do you think Vista is just reporting that it sees this memory without being able to access all of it?

Yes, I think you are right it just shows what is installed now instead of what is available.
percy.

[Paul G]

I updated to SP1 yesterday and now it says 4Gb although the system now only claims to have access to 2.5GB!

[LUFTY]

Hi Paul

What Graphics card/s do you have installed and how much memory do they have on them ?

Regards


Lufty

[magicaldr]

I updated to SP1 yesterday and now it says 4Gb although the system now only claims to have access to 2.5GB!

You are right, extract from the release notes:

With SP1, Windows Vista will report the amount of system memory installed rather than report the amount of system memory available to the OS. Therefore 32-bit systems equipped with 4GB of RAM will report all 4GB in many places throughout the OS, such as the System Control Panel. However, this behavior is dependent on having a compatible BIOS, so not all users may notice this change.

http://technet2.microsoft.com/Window....mspx?mfr=true

[Paul G]

I have an EVGA GTS 320Mb OC

Hi Paul

What Graphics card/s do you have installed and how much memory do they have on them ?

Regards


Lufty