On Friday 23 February 2001 22:03, Jeffrey Krasky wrote:
> Is it possible to have a process address more than 2^32 bytes of RAM (4GB)
> using kernel 2.2.14 or 2.2.15 or 2.2.16 on Pentiums? Someone told me that
> since the Pentium is only a 32 bit processor, I can't address over 2^32
> bytes.
That's basically correct, although you *can* still "abuse" the virtual memory
hardware to implement a form of "bank switching", similar to what 8 bit
systems with 16 bit address busses used to do. However, I don't know if there
are any main boards with hardware support for something like that...
It seems trivial to reserve a part of the physical address space for bank
switched RAM and have the OS deal with it similar to a mmapp()ed file that's
in the bank switched RAM, rather than on a traditional disk, but I don't know
if it has been done.
You should ask the database community about this. They're the ones who use
these huge amounts of physical RAM for real work. (Most of them seem to do it
on Alpha or other 64 bit architectures, though - much easier and cleaner, and
more efficient.)
//David
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