[GDS|Entropy] wrote:
> I know that in 32bit OS progs are limited to 2gb max or so each, but why 
> can't pov use a swap file like photoshop?

The confusion is between the amount of semiconductor RAM available and the 
amount of space in the address space.

Maybe an analogy would help: At the bank, they give you 4 squares on the 
deposit slip to write the amount of your deposit. The most you can deposit 
on one slip is $9999. Now, maybe their cash drawer only has room to fit 
$1000 at a time, so the use the "swap space" in the vault to move different 
drawers in and out of the vault to handle peoples deposits. You can have 
lots of people depositing $100 and $200 at a time, and you can have one 
person deposit $6000 (but that person will wait while tellers run back and 
forth to the vault), but one person just can't put more than $9999 in their 
account regardless of how big the bank vault is.

You're running up against there only being 32 squares on the deposit slip, 
regardless of how much room is left in the vault. You'll find you can run 
(slowly) another copy of POV at the same time that the first is running out 
of memory.

POV could use a swap file and manually track it, but that's a *lot* of code 
for relatively little gain. (Indeed, pretty much all the text editors and 
word processors back in 9-bit days did the same sort of thing.)

It would have been more gain had 64-bit computers not come along and 
eliminated the need to track that manually. Now, it's probably cheaper to 
install Win64 than it is to pay someone to code up a swap file in POV. :-) 
The power of mass market solutions trumps per-application solutions, in this 
case.

> You don't happen to know what that "some setting" is that would let me use 
> 3gb for progs until then do you? That would really be useful...

GIYF. http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEmem.mspx

"The virtual address space of processes and applications is still limited to 
2 GB unless the /3GB switch is used in the Boot.ini file."

> xp pro 64

I have noticed that on high-end machines, Vista seems to do a better job of 
handling (for example) disk and windowing stuff at the same time. I can copy 
from disk1 to disk2 and disk3 to disk4 and still not bring the system to its 
knees, which wasn't true of my xp systems.

> And if windows 7 actually does make you pay monthly for features else they 
> get turned off, then screw it

I think a huge number of people would agree. Have you heard anything along 
those lines announced? I'd be surprised if anything other than "enterprise" 
type stuff (like Exchange servers, say) needed an ongoing license fee.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   My fortune cookie said, "You will soon be
   unable to read this, even at arm's length."

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