I installed 2 brand new sticks of fully compatible 1GB RAM from crucial.com in my DELL XPS Gen 4 this evening and raised total physical RAM from 2GB to 3GB. The good news is that it works fine and I checked with three utilities that the RAM is indeed now 3GB. The disappointing news is that FS9 runs exactly the same as before with no increase in loading speeds or any other speed or anything at all.I'd already made the 3GB switch edit in the boot.ini last week to address a recent OOM flying around EGLL and so far, so good. I ain't complainin' about that !On flying the PMDG 747-400 into Aerosoft's Heathrow 2008 with 10% UT AI and using triple monitors for the VC (which is all I ever fly in these days) with Triplehead2Go, I still had 1.45GB of RAM available on final approach according to Windows Task Manager. But I had no improvement in stutters on final approach -- perhaps my 3.80Ghz processor is maxed out and no amount of RAM can address that specific issue?Anybody else here got 3GB of physical RAM and seen any improvement in any aspect of the sim and its operation?JS

Of course it wont make any difference , FSX dosnt use that much memory. Download memstatus, it will show you how much memory FSX is using i dont ever recall seeing it go much above 1.2 gig.

You've answered your own questionsInstalling the extra RAM has solved your OOM errorStuttering is lack of processor capacity...being a DELL you've probably got 1001 processes running in the background by default unless you've already thinned them out. The processes are probably also hogging memory. Clearing the system would probably have solved your OOM problem.Whenever I set up a DELL XPS I usually disconnect the original hard-drive and leave it there for warranty purposes then do a clean install on a new separate hard-drive!!RegardsJim

I'm not quite sure, but:The boot switch is ">3GB". It only makes sense when having MORE than 3GB RAM. Then any Application (like FSX SP2) can use up to 3 GB RAM. The remaining space is left for Windows. If you install 3GB physically and assign the switch, there would be no room left for windows (so the switch most propably doesn't do anything).Can an expert give more details?Bigean

The remaining space is left for Windows. The remaning space is not for Windows its for Hardware Addressing.PCI slots, Com Ports, USB, PS2 ports etc. Windows will load into RAM.Regardsjim

>Of course it wont make any difference , FSX dosnt use that>much memory. Download memstatus, it will show you how much>memory FSX is using i dont ever recall seeing it go much above>1.2 gig."The disappointing news is that FS9 runs exactly the same as before with no increase in loading speeds or any other speed or anything at all."I believe JSACKS was referring to FS9 not FSX..jack

I have 46 other processes running. What a waste! In the old days I used a marvellous little utility to close down all that stuff (by Ken Salter), but I've long since forgotten how to program things to get it to work right. Do you think that having the extra physical RAM is better than making the 3GB switch in Windows? Can I take the switch out now safely without fear of an OOM? I ask because I think that FS9 loads more slowly since I inserted the switch.JS

With FS9, I have never been able to consume more than 2GB physical memory running it and as many addons and web browsing windows that I could throw at it, so 3GB does not make any difference in in-flight performance of the sim. What it does do is improve disk caching, so that if you reload a flight or exit the sim and restart it, things hammer along nicely.I bought 3GB memory for the combination of FSX + addons + Vista Overhead. Effectively, the extra 1GB is one for the OS pot.Gary

Yes, Gary, I guess you are right. Timing things with a stopwatch, I am observing now that it loads a full PMDG 744 FMC flight in the VC with all systems and panel settings working on triple LCDs in 35 secs which is faster than before. I am not sure if it has speeded up any further the already fast loading of default FS9 aircraft however. If nothing else hopefully I won't suffer any more OOMs--which ain't such a small thing because when the OOM happens it totally ruins a flight.JS