[R] Problems with XP32-"3GB-patch"?/ Worth upgrading to Vista X64?

[Ralph79]

Dear R-Users,

as I will start a huge simulation in a few weeks, I am about to buy a new
and fast PC. I have noticed, that the RAM has been the limiting factor in
many of my calculations up to now (I had 2 GB in my "old" system, but
Windows still used quite a lot of virtual memory), hence my new computer
will have 4 GB of fast DDR2-800 RAM.

However, I know that 1.) Windows 32 bit cannot make use of more than about
3,2 GB RAM and 2.) it is normally not allowed to allocate more than 2 GB of
RAM to one single application (at least under XP, I don't know if that has
changed under Vista?).

I remember from the R-FAQ that you can manually adjust XP so that it
allocates up to 3 GB to one application ("the 3GB patch"), but I read in a
PC-magazine and some message boards that this may cause problems. Does
anybody of you successfully use this "trick" without any problems? 

Would it be wise to use a 64bit OS, as e.g. Vista X64? I think, under Vista
X64 it should be no problem to allocate 4 GB of RAM to R. Any experiences
with that?

Thanks in advance,
Ralph Wirth


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Ralph Wirth
University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Chair of Statistics
GfK Group, Department of Methods and Product Development

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