Physical RAM restrictions of operating systems

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Jul 4 2010, 10:30 pm
In response to Ripiz
You're not listening. The operating system can access it, because the operating system uses pointers that are longer than 32 bits. Yes, even if it's a '32-bit' operating system.

I'm not talking about '4 gb + vram', whatever you mean by 'vram' (I assume virtual address space?). Virtual address space isn't something 'extra' tacked onto the end of physical address space. It's a mapping. It's overlayed over the top of physical address space. And it's not a total mapping, either.
Jul 5 2010, 9:26 am
In response to Ripiz
Maybe you want to explain how the Linux kernel can access up to 64 GB of physical RAM when compiled for x86 (32 bit). It uses paging tables (kernel tables and user tables) to map it's physical window. It's slower than PAE naturally, but it quite happily works. I'm interested to hear why this strategy won't work, even though you know ... people are running systems where it does.
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