How come when this guyhttp://www.petri.co.il/pagefile_optimization.htmsays that and most believe hime and Mitch says what he says, nobody really believes him? I believe ya Mitch.JIMJAM, keep us updated and do you have FS9 or 10? Mitch, did you ever try the " Unlimited " setting?JimCYWG

Thanks for the input Mitch, I did try it out with 2X1gig, and 2X512 with same result, changed the 3 Gigs to 677Mhz from the same manufacturer with same result. fitted 4X1 gigs AND still reading 2gigs. I read some where that Windows XP home can not read more than 2 gigs!!Don't know really... ran into a wall here.

Hmmm...XP cannot page more than 2GB of ram at a time. It will still use whatever ram you have, up to 4GB, as long as it doesn't page over the 2GB mark.To get "full" use of >2GB ram, ie, to let XP page beyond 2GB, you need to use the "/3GB" switch in your boot.iniDo a search on MS Technet for "3GB switch" and for heaven's sake read it very carefully, TWICE.Fooling with boot.ini can really screw your rig.Myself, either I am seeing the difference already, or this 'tweak' does nothing. I have 4GB of ram installed, but XP never even gets over the 1.2-1.5GB mark, even over busy places (mainly been testing in S.F. and Sydney).My rig is an XP64 +3800, 4GB ram, Nvidia 7800GTX256. I cannot run at normal autogen, I get only 3-4fps near the ground.I run at sparse autogen, dense scenery, 38m mesh, 2m textures, low traffic. I aim to get 25fps, with drops to 15fps on approach. I don't use any cfg tweaks at all - they all made no difference I couldn't mimic by simply tuning my settings. In testing the biggest effect on performance is traffic, especially cars, followed by AI planes & other moving AI, then autogen, then weather, then mesh, then textures.

If you look at task manager under the performance tab, there is a setting called "Peak" under "Commit Charge (K)". Anymore ram then that is being wasted except as a file system cache. It you add much more memory than you are using (ie 3 gig) I believe the only way you can take advantage of it is if you have set your registry setting for "LargeSystemCache" to 1 (for server).The registry key is: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControl Session ManagerMemory ManagementBruce

I haven't read all these posts, though did read the first few (pages! LOL). I develop software for a living, and as far as XP is concerned, the following points (some raised from the few pages I did read) are true....1. XP Home has the inherent 32 bit OS limit of 4GB RAM support (though the higher end Win2003 32 bit OS's can access 8,32 or 64GB depending on version using a feature called PAE, but can't be done in XP 32 bit editions).2. Process within XP can only access 2GB of RAM. Anything above that can only be used by the OS executive (kernel). There was a work around to make it 3GB for processes, 1GB for kernel due to certain customer requests back in the NT 4.0 days (just in case someone did mention or know of that!).3. On my FSX system, while not exactly smooth if I have it maxed out (though I can get close) the maximum memory usage is about 1.5GB, the remainder being the bit left up to the Commit Charge Limit that is available should a process actually ask for it - other than that it's just wasted memory! But see 4 below!4. I run FSX on a clean install, and do all my other stuff on other machines, so with a lot installed on your system, it could reach the 2GB limit - such that RAM over 2GB COULD give you a performance increase in FSX since it gives some extra overhead for the OS and your hardware drivers to do their things!So in conclusion (I do get to one eventually), for the vast majority of people, I doubt you would see much benefit in going over 2GB (well no more than just shutting down all those services and all the crap you have that loads up during your windows boot up!). But for certain installs and hardware, there is potential for some benefit, and the OP (and maybe others, like I said haven't read all the posts) obviously fall into that category.Okay done now!

Well amost done - I will just add, it is possible for a product (FSX or any other) to add it's own low level routines (API's for special file handling or other system level functions that might help it work better) - these are generally referred to as ROOT KITS (generally a Unix term, but it's used in the Windows world too). No, it's not something that helps you unblock a clogged sink - more it's an add on to the Kernel, like a device driver, and those sort of low level things can take advantage of the space allocated to the OS core.If FS installs anything along those lines, you could see more significant advantages if you did have the hardware to crank up your FSX to use a whole 2GB in it's process, since that sort of thing runs in the kernel space - now I've opened a can of worms, SORRY!

Thanks Bruce!I just enabled the LargeSystemCache to (1).I'll report if there is yet greater performance in having a 3 GB system.Mitch

Jim, I have both 9 and 10. I fly both.I am fast becoming a true FSX mission-hound. Last night, I took a VFR flight at dusk to night transition for about 2 hours, staying to the right of I-75. I love the way FSX renders the night life...There are so many new features, a lot subtle, that you really have to get into a plane, take off, and EXPLORE the FSX environment.It was such a hoot to see big rigs, travel trailers, cars, cruising down '75 as I flew 3,500 to the side of it, not to mention that they all drive over and down the other side of bridges!Trust me, I am truly reporting what has happened to my system for the good since memory upgrading. I don't own stock in Crucial (Micron) Geez...wait...er...maybe I should!!! LOLWhat is Kingston posting? LOLTake care,Mitch'er

Hi all,I think some folks here are a bit confused over DIMM vs DUAL CHANNEL memory. DIMM's are the way individual RAM blocks are built (explained above), while Dual Channel enables you to access 2 RAM blocks at a time, almost doubling the bandwidth. Of course, you need 2 blocks at a time to do that, and they must also be identical!As for the 3GB discussion, I'm reluctant to 'join the fray'... OK, my 2 cents: Whether or not a given process can use all of 'it's' 2GB may be less important than this question: What does XP do with the available/surplus memory? It uses it for caching! Well, probably not all of it, but Mitch repeatedly refers to his system as "stutterfree". It think that is because much more of FSX's data is being read into memory, since there is room for it => less stutters and that in turn is also keeping FPS up.Will 3 GB then work for all? I don't think so, it also depends on what else you have running. Lets see a couple of other guys come up with the same results, then we can judge it. But thanks for the tip in any case, Mitch!BRGDSSven Sorensen, EKCH

Paul,sorry late response, but I've been outdon't think I asked for nothing, I appreciate the links and been sniffing, here's my other finding:http://www.tweakguides.com/TGTC.htmlit's a bit contradictory (scroll to Virtual Memory Optimization)a admit this swap thing should be more usefull to ppl bellow 1-2 GB, that aplies to me.to have or not to have the mini-dump as a safeguard for XP not recognizing the allocated swap?I'm pretty much sure it is recognized in my case, I see red blinks from time to time, I know its the swap cause it is on SATA, my OS is on IDE and that one is much noisier.I'll probably have other benefits for the extra ram so I'll get it anyway. I'll make comparison and post results.regardsPedro

I accidentally ran across this version of XP 64 bit: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/overview.mspxIs this something to do with memory utilization? Maybe I'm really dense but I wasn't aware this version of XP was out there. If you run this OS for FSX, with the additional memory, can you avoid the registry tweeks mentioned in this thread?If I'm totally off base, feel free to let me know. I found the XP 64 bit OS here:http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetai...ductCode=604652Edit - Oops - I just found this thread - sorryhttp://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...e=&topic_page=1