530°

4GB: The Next RAM Barrier

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David Strom writes:

''Back in the early days of DOS, we had a memory barrier of 640kB of memory.

I know, it seems quaint now, something that you can find on the chipsets of audio greeting cards rather than real computers, but we spent a lot of time juggling applications to fit in that space. We had special hardware cards that could address more memory, and we had swapping programs (remember Quarterdeck?) that could allow us to run bigger apps. (And for those of us who are really old, we even remember the 64kB barrier of the earliest Apple // computers!)''
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harry190 - contributor
Published: 602 days 18 hours ago | Article | PC | Tech
 
 

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Sheddi - 602 days 18 hours ago
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1 -
thats very true
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Merovee - 602 days 17 hours ago
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2 - Too Bad
4 Gigs is the barrier for 32 bit computing, it's too bad more has not been done software side to expedite the embracing of the 64 bit architectures that have been around for the last 4 years.
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deeznuts - 602 days 15 hours ago
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2.1 -
4 gigs is the theoretical limit but I think it's even less, due to graphics etc.

You really only get a bit more than 3 if you install 4. Intuitive isn't it?
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Kakkoii - 602 days 3 hours ago
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2.2 -
deeznuts: Actually...

That's a fault with 32bit Windows.

There is a patch you can get that allows Windows XP to detect all 4GB of the RAM.

http://www.microsoft.com/wh...
PAE - Physical Address Extension

Windows Server 2003 SP1, Datacenter Edition can use up to 128 GB of physical RAM with PAE enabled.

Windows XP can use up to 4GB.
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titntin - 602 days 17 hours ago
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Yeah the 4 gig limit is a real pain to me on this machine, and I really need to more ram - I doa lot of intensive 3D.

The worst thing is that with XP professional you opnly get 3 gig of the 4 gig you have installed! That just adds insult to injury! :)
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bourner - 602 days 17 hours ago
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3.1 -
well get vista 64 then
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titntin - 602 days 16 hours ago
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3.2 -
Doesn't run any of thre apps I HAVE to run. Some of my customers run older versions of Max or Maya (to fit their pipeline) and I have to be able to run these legacy versions.

Anyway, there seeems no point in having a bit more memory only to let a resource hogging OS gobble it all up! :) Don't I need 4 gig just for Vista? lol
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y0haN - 602 days 14 hours ago
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3.3 -
It's not Windows XP's fault, it's a 32-bit (or x86) architecture which physically can't address more than 4 GB of memory. This includes graphics memory and others so that is why you're only able to see 3 GB of RAM addressed. Get a 64-bit OS if your applications support them.
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Kakkoii - 602 days 3 hours ago
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3.4 -
Enable PAE on your computer and you will be able to use all 4GB

http://www.microsoft.com/wh...
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tfur - 602 days 17 hours ago
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4 - hehe... 4gig barrier for me to poop on...
I have 16gig in my workstation right now... I have been running 64bit linux for years...

It's a shame how behind the times MS/Windows is... I was running 64bit OS's back in 1994 on SGI Irix...
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titntin - 602 days 16 hours ago
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4.1 -
Ahh, yes they were the days - I too used a SGI extreme with softimage when I was with Psygnosis! 50K just for my workstation - and that was back in the days when 50K was a lot of money...:)

Shame SGI died out - I liked the funky colours!
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tfur - 602 days 14 hours ago
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4.2 -
Cool...

I used to do the particle and shader work in Alias|Wavefront Power animator, then of course moved onto Maya. Those were the days...

The downfall of SGI is a tragedy. There were so many incredible people there, and the hardware was so good. Not many people know how incredible SGI was...

I have since moved onto a "real" job (frowny face, but I make the money I need to)...

I am currently using a Sun Ultra 40, 2 cpu's, 16gigs ram, and a Quadro FX 4500. I run my own personal copy of Maya for personal art and whatnot...

peace...
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wibble - 602 days 17 hours ago
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5 -
Vista 64 is a nightmare. I've had to go back to XP. I'm sure Vista 32 will be fine though. So I'm not blaming Vista, but just the 64 bit drivers.
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SaiyanFury - 602 days 13 hours ago
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Heh, they couldn't be more right about video cards sucking up a lot of RAM. I have 4GB of RAM in my PC as well as 2 videocards in SLI. The second videocard has a large footprint in my RAM and Windows will only show me having 2.5GB of RAM instead of 4. No big deal though, I just use my extra partitions and make large paging files. Solves all of life's problems. :)
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Kakkoii - 602 days 3 hours ago
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7 -
This story is pointless.. If you want more RAM. Then use a 64bit version.

Windows has had 64Bit versions of it's OS's for a while now.

http://www.microsoft.com/wi...

I use Windows XP Pro 32-bit. But they're is that 64bit version also.

And if you want your XP to see all 4GB, enable PAE.

http://www.microsoft.com/wh...
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MGL_Gamer - 602 days 1 hour ago
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8 - little shy
i have two 512mb ram
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ProblemSolver - 602 days ago
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9 - 4GB Barrier? LOL
The 4GB "barrier" and the 32bit-windows-issue talk remains me on the ancient Greeks. Well, the real issue is bandwith. Ehm sorry, it's bandwitdh x distance. >= 16GB on a system with a 6GB/s bus-bandwidth is usually rather useless, esp. if multicore processing comes into play. The processing units will wait forever.
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tfur - 601 days 15 hours ago
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9.1 -
>= 16GB is not useless. Not sure where you get that idea.

I have a multitude of servers that have 12+ cpu's and 48 gigs of RAM. My workstation has 2 dual core cpus and 16GB or RAM.

I mean crap, 512 cpu / 1024 core systems exist and are in use today. Using 24+ TB of shared memory...
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ProblemSolver - 601 days 10 hours ago
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10 - @tfur
> >= 16GB is not useless. Not sure where you get that idea.

Sorry, I was speaking more of the performance & efficiency side of
things. Of course, TBs of memory are welcome if you have to store
a lot of things (on servers, yes). But this is not the point I've mentiond.

> I have a multitude of servers that have 12+ cpu's and 48 gigs of RAM.

Increasing the amount of memory in a computing system is only
needed if that system would page out to disk too much. Yes, increasing
the memory (in this case) will give you a certain speed up.

But guess you have plenty of memory in a computational powerful
system (with powerful processing elements), what do you think is the
limiting factor of the overall performance of that system? With
performance I mean; keeping the processing elements fed!
It is the memory subsystem and its bandwidth that limits the
performance here.

The amount of memory isn't a real issue today, as well as the
computational speed of today's processing elements. The issue is only
the bandwidth between these two components (and related things,
like the high-bandwidth-memory chip, the interface, and the
memory-bus logic) what defines the problem.

> My workstation has 2 dual core cpus and 16GB or RAM.

And your computational processing elements are almost always
waiting (executing memory calls) for the memory controller to bring
in the data. Yeah, I know all the workarounds like Hyper-threading and
memory-prefetching, but they don't solve the issue.

Why do you thing the PS3 was built with only 512MB memory?
Because Sony couldn't effort 4GB memory? Yeah, they couldn't effort
4GB of system (XDR-) memory supporting 25GB/s memory transfer!
Btw; This speed is essentially what gives a (PC-) graphics accelerator
board its speed. How much memory do they have on average, 256MB?
Do draw complex and life-like worlds you need a lot of memory, right,
but without a huge bandwidth these worlds wouldn't turn at all, since
the processing elements have to wait forever for the date to come in.

This was my perspective on the topic.

> I mean crap, 512 cpu / 1024 core systems exist and are in use today.
> Using 24+ TB of shared memory...
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10.1 crank | 601 days 10 hours ago - User only got 1 bubble - Show
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tfur - 601 days 6 hours ago
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10.2 -
I see what you you were talking about now... Extreme performance and efficiency. I agree with you.

I am very impressed with rambus/flexio and xdr memory system. I wonder what the future of that will be as far as platforms/systems...

Great answers...
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ProblemSolver - 597 days 7 hours ago
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10.3 - @tfur
> I see what you you were talking about now... Extreme
> performance and efficiency.

Always! :)

> I agree with you.
>
> I am very impressed with rambus/flexio and xdr memory system.

Me, too.
Quite interesting, the PS2 already featured Rambus RDRAM with a peak
bandwidth of about 3.2GB/s, ten years ago!

> I wonder what the future of that will be as far as platforms/systems...

In my opinion, a general PC will not (and never has) pushed the need
for a high-bandwidth-low-latency RAM mainly because of the type of
applications running on a PC (like spreadsheets, etc.). However, Intel
has come to known of the issue 10 years ago and they've built a
chipset supporting the powerful Rambus RDRAM (PC-800), increasing
the bandwidth up to 1.6GB/s in comparison to the common PC-133
SDRAM at 1GB/s, in 1999. But due to its initial cost, high license
fees/issues, and bad word-of-mouth recommendation, RDRAM was
(more or less) abandoned on PCs.

Super-computers, PC graphics accelerator boards, and video consoles
have pushed the memory-subsystem a lot. Today we have GDDR3 and
Rambus' XDR RAM within the PS3 as video- and main memory,
respectively. Both serve a bandwidth of around 25GB/s. Future RAM
technology, like the GDDR5 and Rambus' XDR2 RAM, will go up to the
200GB/s range. However, I don't expect this type of memory to be seen
on a PC as main memory for quite a long time. For example, to match
the PS3s XDR main memory on a PC you have to buy a PC3-12800
(DDR3-1600, Dual-channel. 25.6GB/s) module. As of this writing, this
type of memory cost around 300 EUR for 4GB! Quite expensive.
In 2009/10 the price tag of DDR3 memory will match that of today's
DDR2, of course. But not only the memory chip itself is important, a
well designed memory-bus/interface/subsystem is vital to efficiently
support the multicore processing elements.

"I wonder what the future of that will be as far as platforms/systems..."

PC: I think the memory-subsystem for PCs will rely on DDR3 for quite
a loooong time, since there is not so much pressure to go much higher
within a short time frame. Further, the preferred memory type on a PC
also depends to a large extend on the type of application. A PC-Server
likely prefers more low-latency memory whereas multimedia applications
(as on video consoles) have a keen appetite for high-bandwidth memory.
Unfortunately, low-latency; high-bandwidth; and large amounts of
storage space don't fit well together.

Video consoles: If we don't die all on casual gaming, then I think the
next console generation will feature around 4GB of memory at a
bandwidth of >= 100GB/s. Fortunately, the required bandwidth can
be computed ahead of time, since the bandwidth required must match
the computational "speed" of the processing elements. And how much
processing elements to be used depends on the content (its complexity)
one is willing to deliver as well as on the cost and the estimated profit
to gain.
The inevitably low-latency issue is already addressed today (within the
Cell processor) by cascading the memory-subsystem and by being able
to program the memory controller(s) directly, and by using a technique
known as latency-hiding (overlays and/or multi-buffering).
This technique works since the data stemming from multimedia content
is rather predictable. This type of programming is initially somewhat
more difficult esp. if you consider it from a PC-programmers perspective.
But in the end it is more natural, it resembles a lot of things you do in
your daily life due to the physical constrains. Some companies have
already figured it out how to do it right, like for example 'Insomniac
Games'.
What I want to tell is; latency can be hidden to a large extend (if done
right), but insufficient bandwidth can not.
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11 crank | 601 days 10 hours ago - User only got 1 bubble - Show
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ProblemSolver - 601 days 9 hours ago
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12 - @crank
> and the PS3 has huge bandwidths,

The PS3s bandwidth is quite balanced with respect to the computational
performance of the Cell chip (esp. the agglomerated bandwidth of Cell's
Element Interconnect Bus which peaks at ~ 200GB/s), unlike current PC
systems who relaying on fast processors but on weak memory-subsystem.

> in 2 years or so games will be pretty enough for any graphic doosh

Graphics is fine for now and will be improved even further. However,
I don't like the Nvidia chip inside the PS3. A second Cell chip was a
possibility but was taken out due to the non-existent (Cell-) graphics
libraries, in my opinion.
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