What Happens If Virtual Memory Is Used Entirely For A Pc Game

What will happen if we use more than 4GB of memory in a 32-bit system? Will the system be able to use more than 4GB? Under what conditions can a system have more than 4GB of memory?

There are two aspects of your system to consider here: Physical memory and virtual memory. I'll cover both.Physical memory: A 32-bit system generally cannot physically address more than 4GB of RAM ([math]2^{32}[/math]). Systems, however, have adopted extensions that allow a 32-bit processor to physically access more than 4GB of RAM. This is generally implemented via page table hacks. The x86 architecture, for example, supports a feature called Physical Address Extension (PAE) that (in its most common form) extends physically-addressable memory to 64GB ([math]2^{36}[/math]). PAE is quite common. If your system supports it, you can have more than 4GB of RAM. Otherwise you are stuck at 4GB.Virtual memory: A 32-bit process cannot address more than 4GB of virtual memory absent segmentation or nonlinear address spaces. Given that modern operating systems employ non-segmented, flat address spaces, you are stuck with <=4GB of process address space. Indeed, if you could flat-address n-bits of address space, I'd say you had an n-, not 32-, bit system.

Does having a near-full hard drive negatively affect overall computer performance?

A near-full hard drive can negatively affect PC performance.Windows moves information into and out of RAM, your computer’s temporary memory. Some of the content in RAM is Windows itself, some of it may be software you are running, and some of it may be data that Windows predicts you will want soon.RAM is very fast but has limited capacity compared to a capacious hard drive. So the operating system will balance your needs by noting which data in RAM has not been accessed in a while, then copying it to the hard drive and clearing up its space in RAM. If you do request it again, it’ll be taken off the hard drive and copied back into RAM.Exactly how this is accomplished differs a bit between versions of Windows, but all of them are sending your data from fast memory to a bin or two on your slow hard drive. Some versions may be able to copy entire programs, effectively suspending them if the software itself allows, kind of like a hibernation state for an individual program. Others can only do bits and pieces, and older versions don’t really do the predictive magic either.Anyhow, Windows usually adjusts the size of that ‘bin’ on your hard drive, on the fly, to fit its needs. Figure one-and-a-half times the size of your RAM is a fair amount.If you do not have enough spare capacity to accommodate, Windows will use less. It’s very polite that way.But eventually the available capacity is too small and will impinge on the ability of the operating system to swap data in and out of RAM. The predictive prestidigitation gets weird, the paging in and out becomes frenetic, and your hard drive might thrash as access becomes shorter and more frequent.And your computer will crawl.