CS4 not recognizing added memory

[Jody_...@adobeforums.com]

Hi,
I am running CS4 on a Windows Vista Platform. I have increased my RAM from 2GB to 4GB (max for 32 bit system). I've checked my computer and the memory is 'registered' and recognized by the system. Everything seems to be fine but when I go to CS4 Preferences it still lists my available RAM as 1645 (old 2GB figure). How do I get Adobe to see my new memory?
Thanks,
j.

[dave_...@adobeforums.com]

you need to set the boot.ini switch "/3gb" in windows. google for instructions from microsoft on doing that.

[ste...@adobeforums.com]

There is no "boot.ini" in Vista.

Look for "IncreaseUserVa" instead.

[dave_...@adobeforums.com]

whoops. missed the vista thing. sorry. :)

[Jody_...@adobeforums.com]

Oh dear, thanks to both of you for your replies but I've spent a couple of hours at the Microsoft site trying to figure out how to access IncreaseUserVa with no success. I found a paper that told me to do the following:
1.Start/CMD
2.Right click and select run as administrator (I am the adminstrator)
3.Click 'allow' to permit elevated permissions on the DOS prompt
4.type bcedit /export "C:\BCDBackup
5.type Bcdedit /Set IncreaseUserVA 3072
etc, etc, etc
Well, I typed 'cmd' and my response was C:\Users\Jody (that's me)
and now way would it let me to right click as administrator or hit allow etc.
I am totally stuck.
j.

[David_E_...@adobeforums.com]

Jody,

You have to be careful with setting that switch. When you run that command you are setting the amount address space that is available to the system to 1 gig imstead of 2 gig. Your card ram needs to be taken into account.

May work for some people but there are a few people out there who had to revert back because their computer would not boot.

Here is a link for more reading. Copy and paste.

<http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa906211.aspx>

[En...@adobeforums.com]

Why would you put 4 gigs of RAM in a 32 bit system? You can only actually utilize 2.25gig of it. Sure your OS may SEE the 4 gigs, but its just a waste.

[Free...@adobeforums.com]

I wouldn't call it wasted. Remember, you're running a lot of processes simultaneously, and all of those nibble at the available RAM. The OS is keeping track of all this, and allocating memory east and west. That's why it's important that the OS has access to as much as possible.

And that's exactly the reason increasing Photoshop's share of the total is not necessarily a great idea.

[En...@adobeforums.com]

No,no.

You can only use 2.25gig TOTAL. That means all your apps put together. Windows may say that it can see your 4 gigs, but your only getting a portion of it.

[Free...@adobeforums.com]

3.25

[Jody_...@adobeforums.com]

I think your right. Microsoft pages I've been reading say that I should be able to access approx 3GB of memory from 4GB system. The other 1GB is allocated to 'high' system processes (whatever those are). My computer is accessing about 3GB of memory but Adobe isn't. That seems to be my problem. There are many 32byte systems out there with 4GB of memory. I wish I had purchased on of those in the first place but I didn't....

[En...@adobeforums.com]

It's 3GB-Vcard RAM=Usable RAM, and I tend to shoot on the low end since most folks with 4gb RAM tend to also have nice Vcards. Really, I should be saying 2.75GB.

But the only way your going to get PS to recognize 3 GB or RAM is to modify your boot.ini file.

[Free...@adobeforums.com]

Ender,

You're confusing RAM with address space.

Video card uses address space out of the total 4GB available to a 32 bit OS, but has its own RAM.

[En...@adobeforums.com]

No, I'm not. You've got a total of 4GB Address Space, and those high powered Vcards with 768MB of memory take a part of that. I keep saying 2.25 GB because it seems to be the magic number appearing on forums for those folks who are tweaking out their machines.

Vcards are just huge part of that overhead that is removed from the address space.

<http://www.dansdata.com/askdan00015.htm>

There's everything you could possibly need to know about it.

[Free...@adobeforums.com]

Ah, whatever. I don't really have time to get into a shouting match over this now. It's saturday night here.

See you all later :-)

[En...@adobeforums.com]

Well, it's difficult to shout over it, when everything I said is true.

Peace.

[David_E_...@adobeforums.com]

When you take 1 gig away from the 2 gig kernel space it only leaves you with 1 gig for the Kernel to run.

Do the switch?

Your Ram on your video card is mapped to that 1 gig of address space. 1 gig - 512 MB leaves little wiggle room. Thus your 32 bit vista may become unstable because the kernel memory has limited address space.

[Curvem...@adobeforums.com]

Hi Jody!

See if your system will boot with the /3GB switch and you may be able to
get over the 2 GB mark. If it works you will be able to process larger
files, and there is a good chance it will be faster.

With or without the 3GB switch, the system will use the extra 2GB for disk
cache and other useful things, and you will see some benefit in
performance.

[Free...@adobeforums.com]

Ender,

I managed to sneak out...so here's what I meant to say:

The 4 GBs of address space are divided into 2 GBs of user space, available for applications, and 2 GBs of kernel space, available to the system. The video card (and some other stuff) takes a chunk out of kernel space, so you're left with somewhere between 3 and 3.5 that can be mapped to physical memory.

Here's the thing: Address space does not translate directly into physical portions of RAM. If you have Photoshop running it can address up to 2 GB RAM. If you have Bridge, InDesign, Office or whatever else also running, these applications can also each address 2 GB RAM - theoretically, independently of each other. But each application has a 2 GB limit. The OS handles the allocation of RAM between them, but the total may indeed exceed 2 GB.

Enter the /3GB switch (or IncreaseUserVA). This shifts the balance to 3 user to 1 kernel. It means an application that is "large address aware" (like Photoshop) can address up to 3 GBs of physical memory. But that leaves only 1 GB kernel space - including video card. That can be trouble. And since Photoshop doesn't release its memory until quit, that means things can slow down with multitasking because the OS will need to page out the other apps more than it otherwise would have to.

This is not a big deal to me, I've since moved on to x64. If any of the above is wrong, feel free to correct me anyone. I've admitted I was wrong before, and I can do it again.

Have a peaceful sunday. B-)

[dave_...@adobeforums.com]

Have a peaceful sunday

it's still saturday! :P :)

oh wait, you said if the above was wrong. that was below... carry on. XD

[Free...@adobeforums.com]

Past midnight here in the civilized part of the world, Dave... OH WAIT, you just had an election, I remember now...

WELCOME TO THE CIVILIZED WORLD, GUYS! :-) :-) :-)

I'm serious. I was really happy about that.

[En...@adobeforums.com]

I'm not really seeing where any of that conflicts with what I said.

You can slap 4 gigs into your system and XP will tell you you have anywhere between 2.25 to 3.2 gigs of RAM, after the overhead has been removed (based on Vcard, PCI inputs and so forth). But, even if you see 3.2 being detected by XP, PS can still only use 2 until you use the 3gig switch. This is exactly what I have been saying, and none of that conflicts with it.

[Free...@adobeforums.com]

It's cool, Ender, maybe we just misunderstood each other. It happens.

But 2.25 is awfully low...that's one h*** of a video card... B-)

[dave_...@adobeforums.com]

that's one h*** of a video card...

ask john joslin about his ferrari video card..

[dave_...@adobeforums.com]

please post it if you find it ender. i'd be interested...

[En...@adobeforums.com]

Well, after surfing around on a few tech forums researching it, I've run into several instances where the BIOS will dedicate waaaay more to the Vcard that what it calls for. I would keep seeing folks who will insert a 512 Vcard and drop to 2.25gigs. Then they remove it an it jumps back to 3.2.

What's killing me is that in my work E-mail someone sent me a doc that spells out why this magic 2.25 number keeps coming up. However, I didn't pay much attention to it then. So, now I've got reason to dig it up.

[En...@adobeforums.com]

Yeah, that's the plan. I'm pretty sure it's Mac biased but it was spammed across the floor at work.

[Jody_...@adobeforums.com]

Guys,
I've been searching and found this:
<http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=kb404439&sliceId=1>
See excerpt below:
The primary advantage of using the 64-bit version is to access amounts of RAM beyond what Photoshop can access when the 32-bit version is run. You can take advantage of more than 4 GB of RAM only when you are on 64-bit Windows, using 64-bit Photoshop. If you use files large enough to need more than 4 GB of RAM, and you have enough RAM, all the processing you perform on your large images can be done in RAM, instead of swapping out to the hard disk.

This table lists the amount of RAM available to Photoshop with the different versions of Windows:

Photoshop Version Windows Version Manximum amount of RAM that Photoshop can use
32-bit 32-bit 1.7 GB (this is exactly what I'm seeing)
32-bit 64-bit 3.2 GB
64-bit 64-bit as much RAM as you can fit into your computer.

The default RAM allocation setting is 70%. This setting should be optimal for most users. To get the ideal RAM allocation setting for your system, change the RAM allocation in 5% increments and watch the performance of Photoshop in the Performance Monitor. You must quit and restart Photoshop after each change to see the change take effect.

So I think I've got my answer. Thanks so much to everybody for all the help.
j.

[En...@adobeforums.com]

... Jody. Not to be insulting but... you didn't tell us anything we weren't all well aware of.

What we are talking about here is that you can use the 3gb switch to allow your 32bit OS and 32bit PS to use 3gb without having to upgrade either.

[Russell...@adobeforums.com]

Here's another gotcha .... discovered it when I could no longer copy a very large file (40gb+) to another hard disk. (It was a system backup archive)

<http://techrepublic.com.com/5208-11189-0.html?forumID=3&threadID=197537&messageID=2059915>

Russell

[Russell...@adobeforums.com]

Here's another gotcha .... discovered it when I could no longer copy a very large file (35gb) to another hard disk. (It was a system backup arhive)

<http://techrepublic.com.com/5208-11189-0.html?forumID=3&threadID=197537&messageID=2059915>

Russell

[Jody_...@adobeforums.com]

Oh, not insulted at all (and I did understand the nature of the discussion) but it seemed as if things we're getting a bit testy out there. I sincerely thank everybody for their input. I now know more about Adobe, Windows, RAM, Virtual than I ever wanted to...
j.

[Lawrenc...@adobeforums.com]

That's only the beginning, Jody, and it looks like you are hooked! :D