A couple of days ago, I found an interesting piece of information on memory management in Windows. As some know, 32-bit Windows can only allocate 4GB of RAM to any application. Out of that, it allocates 2GB of memory for kernel space, and the other 2GB for the app itself. Well, that can be slightly adjusted for marginal improvement.

Firstly, a file called boot.ini has to be edited - at the end of the line that boots your Windows, add "/3GB" switch (without the quoteation marks". That will force Windows to allocate 3GB of that 4GB memory space for the application, and only 1GB for the kernel space. While not recommended on server systems, it works quite nicely on single-user PCs.

Secondly, the application in question (Poser in my case) has to be made aware of that larger memory window and instructed to use it. You would need the Microsoft COFF Binary File Editor (EDITBIN.EXE). It is a part of Visual Studio Express and some other development packages. You run it like this:

editbin.exe "c:\Program Files\e frontier\Poser 6\poser.exe" /LARGEADDRESSAWARE

Word of caution, though - it is only recommended IF, and only if you know what you're doing - and if you are sure it is in fact what you need. Obviously, you really want to make backup of the EXE files you're modifying, and backup of all of your important files, just in case - because editing the boot.ini may result in your system being unable to boot. Needless to say, neither Microsoft nor your application maker will support the modified OS and application. That having been said, it worked for me just fine.


Oh, and you don't need all these perversions for 64-bit Windows and 64-bit apps. ^_^

Now I'll go research the /PAE and /nolowmem switches... cheers~