Guide to enable windows XP to use more than 3.25GB ram

Y

yummy90

I don't know who to give credits to but the earliest this was found was from a chinese tech forum
http://bbs.pediy.com/showthread.php?t=137830

Note:
You need not apply this tweak if you are using windows XP SP1 OR you only have 3gb ram to begin with

This fix should work on Windows XP SP3, I have no idea if it works the same on Windows XP SP2

What does it do?
Basically this tweak is to enable more RAM to function as if it is 64 bit for 32 bit windows XP

The Benefits?
1. More reason to disable paging file
2. Be able to multitask more
3. Use that wasted ram

Download Link:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/i7nhh6hj8af63ui/Gamersky-WindowsXP_64G_RAM.7z

Source:http://www.gamersky.com/handbook/201503/549958.shtml
(in all honesty the fix doesn't help running the game at all)

1. Make sure you disable ramdisk or any similar software
(I have zero knowledge about ramdisk and methods to keep this but you can free up some disk space by disabling paging file instead)

2. Copy ntkl64g.exe, hal64g.dll to C:/windows/system32/

3. Go to control panel, system, advanced, under startup and recovery click setting

4. Edit the boot.ini file from there, save it as boot.txt anywhere before you edit it as a backup
(The default location of boot.ini file is in C:\ but you won't be able to see it)

5. Method 1 will give you the option to apply when you boot into windows and
Method 2 will just apply the fix when you boot into windows

Method 1
[operating system]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /noexecute=optin

(Here you need to change /noexecute=alwaysoff to /noexecute=optin)

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP 64G" /kernel=ntkl64g.exe /hal=hal64g.dll /fastdetect /PAE /noexecute=optin

(everything is the same as above with /kernel=ntkl64g.exe /hal=hal64g.dll added)

Method 2
Add /kernel=ntkl64g.exe /hal=hal64g.dll into the line, like this

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /kernel=ntkl64g.exe /hal=hal64g.dll /fastdetect /PAE /noexecute=alwaysoff

I have been using this for weeks without issues, and if you want to disable it you can just remove /kernel=ntkl64g.exe /hal=hal64g.dll from the boot.ini file, like this

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /PAE /noexecute=alwaysoff


OR you can just open up that boot.txt I told you about earlier and change it to boot.ini and replace

Please point out if I am missing out on anything
 
Last edited:
Also the PAE hack is great as long as you're addressing under 4 GB (so between 3.5 and 4 GB.) But I find a huge performance hit once you surpass the 4 GB boundary.
 
Jody Thornton said:
Also the PAE hack is great as long as you're addressing under 4 GB (so between 3.5 and 4 GB.) But I find a huge performance hit once you surpass the 4 GB boundary.
Click to expand...
I am working on a patch for XP which can Adress 128Gb Ram
Nothing Wrong with PAE . I use my own patch and day to day running XP with 16GB DDR4 Ram under intel core i7 6700k
 
I don't trust 3rd party files. Is there a method to enable >4GB RAM using files from the (untouched) XP 64-bit ISO?
 
If the files indeed came from xp 64 bit, then i'll give it a try using the untouched files as I do have the 64-bit ISO...
 
What I mean is to run checksums on both of them - MD5, CRC or whatever - to validate authenticity, and to avoid malware, rootkits etc.
 
I've never had any luck disabling the paging file on any Windows version. One is always created somewhere. I just put the pagefile.sys on a fast dedicated disk.

If I have a VMS bottleneck, I first try putting the pagefile.sys (fixed size) on a dedicated SSD. If that doesn't provide enough speed, I put the pagefile.sys on a RAMDisk. THAT ALWAYS FIXES any page fault slowdowns by forcing XP32 to keep data in RAM, no matter the age of the vm page.

Ideally your RAMDisk should use unmanaged RAM not visible to the OS- like Superspeed RAMDisk can do on a PC with 8GB RAM. Windows 2000 also has huge improvements under certain use conditions even with using RAM visible to the OS (haven't tried this under XP as my boxes with the tweak have 8GB of RAM). With this tweak and a 5GB RAMDisk and pagefile, you can have a commit charge up to 5GB and zero paging delays.
 
Just discovered that using this makes formatting a flash drive not work, so keep two options in boot.ini, regular xp and 64gb xp.
 
This is what I recently did in my Dell OptiPlex 980 MT which has the following:
Windows XP Professional SP3 32-bit (up to date to May 2019)
Intel Core i7-860 2.80 GHz quad core processor
16 GB(4 GB x 4) DDR3-1333 RAM (3.55 GB usable)

1. Download and save the 64 GB PAE patch
https://download850.mediafire.com/vozw7lu6yfvg/i7nhh6hj8af63ui/Gamersky-WindowsXP_64G_RAM.7z
and then extract its contents.

2. Copy the ntkl64g.exe and hal64g.dll files into the C:\Windows\system32 folder.

3. Replace the contents of the C:\boot.ini file with this text:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /kernel=ntkl64g.exe /hal=hal64g.dll /fastdetect /PAE /noexecute=alwaysoff

4. Restart the computer.

(Note: This is assuming Windows XP SP3 32-bit is installed in the C: drive)

Upon restart, everything loaded and appeared to work fine.
The amount of usable RAM increased from 3.55 GB to 15.92 GB.
 
cornemuse said:
I tried a different version, maybe not the same? (from a different source), & it didnt work, I'll try this one, , , ,
Click to expand...

Tried this on another comp. What a can of worms!
Copied the instructions etc
1. Download and save the 64 GB PAE patch
https://download850.mediafire.com/vozw7lu6yfvg/i7nhh6hj8af63ui/Gamersky-WindowsXP_64G_RAM.7z
and then extract its contents.

2. Copy the ntkl64g.exe and hal64g.dll files into the C:\Windows\system32 folder.

3. Replace the contents of the C:\boot.ini file with this text:__etc etc
Click to expand...

Rebooted, (words to this effect) got black screen = 'start XP-64 or XP? before I could choose machine re booted start safe-normal? etc chose safe, my comp properties = 8 gig ram 2.7? gig available re booted = safe or normal Normal, booted normally, my comp properties = 4 gig ram 2.7? gig available. Fortunatlt I backed up C:\boot.ini file, deleted the *#2 above*

I dont know, , , , ,
 
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /kernel=ntkl64g.exe /hal=hal64g.dll /fastdetect /PAE /noexecute=alwaysoff

The above is the ONLY text that should be placed in the C:\boot.ini file.

You must have placed the ENTIRE text in the C:\boot.ini file that came with the patch.
 
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