Funny, I have two systems with more than 512 MB of RAM installed on them and
using Win 98 and have not experienced any problems of the sort you describe.
I have experienced problems with the motherboard not being able to resolve
conflicts in timing between different types of 168 pin DIMMs but no
operating system related problems. One of my systems has 758MB of RAM and
the other has 640MB of RAM. Maybe I am just lucky. :-)
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-filmscanners@halftone.co.uk
[mailto:owner-filmscanners@halftone.co.uk]On Behalf Of Rob Geraghty
Sent: Thursday, July 26, 2001 12:12 AM
To: filmscanners@halftone.co.uk
Subject: filmscanners: Scanning and memory limits in Windows
I'm just about to plug another 256MB of RAM into my computer and I thought
I'd better check up on a bug I'd heard mentioned in relation to Windows
98. In fact the bug applies to all versions of Windows other than those
in the NT class (NT 4.0 and Win2K), not just 98. I think Microsoft's
suggested
workarounds on MSDN are hilarious. I wish I could move to Win2K, but I
am reasonably certain that the combination of hardware and software I have
will not work in that environment. So here's the warning in case you plan
to have more than 512MB RAM in your Windows 95, 98, 98SE or ME computer:
>The Windows 32-bit protected-mode cache driver (Vcache) determines the
maximum
>cache size based on the amount of RAM that is present when Windows starts.
>Vcache then reserves enough memory addresses to permit it to access a cache
>of the maximum size so that it can increase the cache to that size if
needed.
>These addresses are allocated in a range of virtual addresses from
0xC0000000
>through 0xFFFFFFFF (3 to 4 gigabytes) known as the system arena.
>
>On computers with large amounts of RAM, the maximum cache size can be large
>enough that Vcache consumes all of the addresses in the system arena,
leaving
>no virtual memory addresses available for other functions such as opening
>an MS-DOS prompt (creating a new virtual machine).
>
>WORKAROUND
>To work around this problem, use one of the following methods:
>
>Use the MaxFileCache setting in the System.ini file to reduce the maximum
>amount of memory that Vcache uses to 512 megabytes (524,288 KB) or less.
>
>For additional information about how to use the MaxFileCache setting, click
>the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge
Base:
>
>Q108079 32-Bit File Access Maximum Cache Size
>Use the System Configuration utility to limit the amount of memory that
Windows
>uses to 512 megabytes (MB) or less.
>
>For additional information about how to use the System Configuration
utility,
>click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft
Knowledge
>Base:
>Q181966 System Configuration Utility Advanced Troubleshooting Settings
>
>Reduce the amount of memory that is installed in your computer to 512 MB
>or less.
Rob Geraghty harper@wordweb.com
