Hey guys, I've searched this all over the web and on apple forums and I still have not gotten a clear answer. After I did a full install of Leopard and boot camp on my mac pro that has 4 gigs of ram (2x512 + 2x1gig on top riser and 2x512 on bottom riser) it only shows 2 gigs of ram (1.98 gig ) in winXP. I added the additional 2 - 1 gig modules the first week I had my mac pro and they work great in mac os. Always have worked great and Mac OS shows 4 gig. People in other forums have different opinions, saying that it is a win xp issue, a 32 bit OS issue, and various other things, but it doesn't make any sense. There are 3 guys I work with that have macs. 2 have mac pros and 1 a macbook pro. The macbook pro guy has gotten 4 gigs to register in XP. One of the mac pro guys has a similar problem to me. He has 6 gigs of RAM and only sees 2. The other mac pro guy has 3 gigs and sees all 3 gigs in windows. So I am thoroughly confused. Moreover, all the forums and people's posts I have seen pretty much focus on boot camp beta and not the full version in Leopard. Can someone please help me get WinXP see all 4 gig? I know it has to be possible. Do I just need Vista 32 bit ?
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Mac Pro 4gig RAM + Boot camp and XP = 2 gig RAM?
- Thread starter cp2222
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There's nothing you can do. Windows XP (32-bit, and most 32-bit x86 operating systems, actually) by design only has 4GB of addressable memory space, and that includes all device address space as well. On the off chance you don't have a lot of devices and your video card has a little bit of memory, you might see close to 3GB, but it's not to be expected.
The /3GB switch trick in boot.ini you might have seen elsewhere will not help either, because it only affects swapfile/virtual memory usage.
Basically, the solution is to upgrade to either XP 64 or Vista 64. Don't go with XP 64, Vista is a better choice at this point, even while it's less mature. To install either, you'll have to hunt for drivers and create the partition/format the independent drive in the installer yourself. Here's a good guide to get you started, although it is out of date.
What I would recommend is to just keep running with the XP install you've got until Vista SP1 comes out early next year, and then upgrade. By that point, Vista will be a great deal better and Vista 64 will probably receive Boot Camp support from Apple (more and more of us are hitting this RAM limitation everyday), so you will have an easier time rounding up the drivers and getting it all working without a hitch. It's possible that at this stage you won't be happy with Vista. Just a thought.
The /3GB switch trick in boot.ini you might have seen elsewhere will not help either, because it only affects swapfile/virtual memory usage.
Basically, the solution is to upgrade to either XP 64 or Vista 64. Don't go with XP 64, Vista is a better choice at this point, even while it's less mature. To install either, you'll have to hunt for drivers and create the partition/format the independent drive in the installer yourself. Here's a good guide to get you started, although it is out of date.
What I would recommend is to just keep running with the XP install you've got until Vista SP1 comes out early next year, and then upgrade. By that point, Vista will be a great deal better and Vista 64 will probably receive Boot Camp support from Apple (more and more of us are hitting this RAM limitation everyday), so you will have an easier time rounding up the drivers and getting it all working without a hitch. It's possible that at this stage you won't be happy with Vista. Just a thought.
i have 4G of ram on my SR MBP. It is only showing 2.98GB of ram on Win XP. I guess the machine is using 2.98GB instead of 4... huh.
so, if i get a mac pro with 16GB of ram, and it would probably shows something like 3GB only; therefore, no need to get 16GB of ram Mac Pro for win xp if one is running a 32 bit win xp or vista. Am I correct? I am still trying to understand this. Thanks.
so, if i get a mac pro with 16GB of ram, and it would probably shows something like 3GB only; therefore, no need to get 16GB of ram Mac Pro for win xp if one is running a 32 bit win xp or vista. Am I correct? I am still trying to understand this. Thanks.
Your correct, the only way windows can take advantage of more ram is changing to a 64 bit version.
64 bit version of vista works fine with boot camp ... drivers are slightly harder to find ... all you have to do is install the bluetooth and GPU graphics drivers for vista 64 bit ... they work fine.
when you install the drivers from the leopard cd the keyboard hotkeys installation fails which you just ignore. only problem is you have to highlight your selected drive right click and select eject to eject a cd.
when you install the drivers from the leopard cd the keyboard hotkeys installation fails which you just ignore. only problem is you have to highlight your selected drive right click and select eject to eject a cd.
thanks for the info. i am debating if i should get a Mac Pro or a regular PC for 3D modeling. i will have to run bootcamp if i use a Mac... It's a tough call. I have been a mac user for years. The new XPS is coming out in 2 day, Mac Pro is coming within a month or two. Suggestions?
What 3D apps are you using? Maya has a mac version, you might be able to transfer your license or upgrade. If you do go with the powermac in bootcamp I would defiantly go with vista to take advantage of the memory addressing and 64bit, since as far as I know Maya renders in 64bit and XSI 5 is native 64-bit (not sure on 3ds) For most people I would say the current mac pro will be almost as fast but rendering a big scene, you could really benefit from the increased CPU's
3ds max 2008 is native 32 and 64 bit program (runs fine in vista 64), v9 is able to run on both 32 bit and 64 bit however there have been some reports of it not running well on 64bit vista.