I think the way Phil explains is is simple enough to understand for most and gives enough details as to how a 32bit env works.What confuses people is adding in the words swap and ram.Bottom line, in todays digital world 4GB of VAS is not near enough, add to the fact 1GB video cards are becoming the norm. A 32bit O/S is out dated if you plan on doing anything with your PC that is memory intensive (even using photoshop).

Many people are confused by the fact that Windows can't run out of physical memory - it makes physical memory available by moving pages out of physical memory to virtual memory when necessary . Similarly, it shouldn't run out of virtual memory which is effectively the page file on the HDD - his can be made as large as necessary - the only downside is the loss of HDD space but with a modern HDD this shouldfn't be a problem.Modern video card RAM doesn't count towards the 4GB limit - It did for very old graphics cards.

The following article helps explain the situation in reasonably straightforward terms:http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366779%28v=VS.85%29.aspx

While it does explain both physical and virtual memory management, it says nothing at all about the "Virtual Address Space Table(s)" and how they are used.For that, one should read this article:http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366912(v=VS.85).aspx

While it does explain both physical and virtual memory management, it says nothing at all about the "Virtual Address Space Table(s)" and how they are used.For that, one should read this article:http://msdn.microsof...a366912(v=VS.85).aspx

That link doesn't work for me. It directs me to my link!!!

Many people are confused by the fact that Windows can't run out of physical memory - it makes physical memory available by moving pages out of physical memory to virtual memory when necessary . Similarly, it shouldn't run out of virtual memory which is effectively the page file on the HDD - his can be made as large as necessary - the only downside is the loss of HDD space but with a modern HDD this shouldfn't be a problem.Modern video card RAM doesn't count towards the 4GB limit - It did for very old graphics cards.

I unerdstand what you are saying but I think you are getting confused with page file and virtual address space like some of the others.......Virtual address space has nothing to do with the page file size, it is a 32bit application limit. 2GB for the system and 2GB for applications. Again nothing to do with ram or page file size. It is what the 32bit system has to work with no matter how much ram or swap file you have.Modern video cards (PCIE) do count towards the 2GB allotted to windows via the Virtual Address space (as per Phil's blog), I will quote Phil here>>Note this switch needs to be used with care, since PCI-Express maps the entire address space of the graphics card into the OS address spaceI also understood that AGP cards did not eat into this VA space, opposite of what your saying.You can read more on this information here (and these dudes do call it virtual memory :( )>>>http://blogs.technet.com/b/askperf/archive/2007/03/23/memory-management-demystifying-3gb.aspxI only chime in here as I did my research when I was having my own OOM issues a couple years back and hope to help others along the path to a 64bit O/S. Nothing is worse than doing a long flight and hearing that OOM *GONG* as your start heading down from cruise......tossing the long flight out the window....

I unerdstand what you are saying but I think you are getting confused with page file and virtual address space like some of the others.......Virtual address space has nothing to do with the page file size, it is a 32bit application limit. 2GB for the system and 2GB for applications. Again nothing to do with ram or page file size. It is what the 32bit system has to work with no matter how much ram or swap file you have.

I'm not confused. My last post refered to physical and virtual memory. It didn't mention Virtual Address Space because that wasn't relevant in that context. Regardless of the size of the Virtual Address Space, Windows can't run out of physical memory and shouldn't run out of virtual memory.

Note this switch needs to be used with care, since PCI-Express maps the entire address space of the graphics card into the OS address spaceI also understood that AGP cards did not eat into this VA space, opposite of what your saying.

This is absolutely, 100% correct. The equation for determining the most appropriate USERVA value is USERVA = 4096 - 768 - amount of gfx ram. Setting USERVA too high will result in excessive paging, severely degrading performance, setting it too low will, obviously, defeat the purpose.

Some OOM errors are also caused by empty texture folders for addon scenery. I used to get this error when flying into CYEG until I looked and saw that the texture folder in the CYEG addon folder was completely empty. Once I deleted the empty texture folder, no more OOM's.

That link doesn't work for me. It directs me to my link!!!

Gerry, I wasn't paying enough attention to the absolute link. Try this one:Virtual Address Space

Some OOM errors are also caused by empty texture folders for addon scenery. I used to get this error when flying into CYEG until I looked and saw that the texture folder in the CYEG addon folder was completely empty. Once I deleted the empty texture folder, no more OOM's.

That is absolutely correct. The point that I and others are trying to make however, is that before dealing with that possibility, it is advisable to take the steps needed to mitigate or eliminate the issue of VAS allocation errors.Once that is done, then if OOMs continue to occasionally occur, it is quite likely to be a scenery issue, most especially if the OOMs occur only in specific geographic areas... ;)