Windows 95 and memory

[Don Harris]

Does win95 recognize memory over 64mb? I installed 192mb and now heard that only win98 will recognize it. thank you

[BC_1]

Win95 will handle more than 64mb of RAM just fine. The 64mb RAM cache limit is a limitation of the i430 series chipset used on alot of older socket 7 motherboards with Pentium 233's and below.

Except for the HX version, this chipset can only cache up to 64mb of RAM. If you were to install more than 64mb of RAM, Windows will still use it, only you might see a performance hit of 3-10% (varies widely depending on sys).

This occurs because Windows works in reverse and utilizes uncached RAM first before dipping into the cached RAM. It's this "dipping" from one memory source to another that is causing the slowdown. This slowdown is only noticable in your benchmarks. You'll never miss it in your games or apps.

[Don Harris]

Thank you for clearing up that little query for me.

[chadzy]

However, even if uncached RAM is used, this is still faster than the swap file on your HDD by several orders of magnitude. So, go ahead and install as much RAM as you want. The performance "hit" is only theoretical, since the loss is in comparison to a case where the RAM is cached (which only happens with newer chipsets, and is therefore irrelevant to your situation).

[BBA]

Agreed!