Can 32-bit Puppy use >3 GB of RAM? (Yes, with PAE)

[gcmartin]

In the prior post, I alluded to the reports that many have shared who have tested the various 32bit PAEs available to the Puppy community.

There is one things that is "overbearing" by the majority of EVERYONE who has tested. The general consensus is that there appears to be an improved desktop performance.

When running the benchmarks as I have, I have wrestled with a reasonable way to demonstrate desktop performance comparison. I have not found a reasonable way to do this that I feel many would agree is accurate. I don't trust my senses as being an accurate measure.

Further, in my tests using the Hardinfo reporting tool and its imbedded utilities, I have found that some of the reporting tools do NOT spread across the processor pool (Cores) as I would have expected, Thus, even those measurements I, personally, don't feel is a "truly" accurate measurement of the system's performance or potential..

Further, again, in my test, those utilities do not seem to address memory saturation in a way I would like to have seen it so that I would have an even better gauge on perfomance when the system is under a high RAM load with SWAP active.

But, if we can accept the assumption that in the 32bit comparison, it uses the processor pools very similarly(ie PAE vs non-PAE), then, it can be viewed as an accurate measure.

Hope this helps

P.S. The vendors (Intel/AMD) have the measurement tools and have done this measurements already. Understanding this, in OS systems development, these Processor hardware vendors make the processor-chipset advancements available to the OS vendors with the information necessary for exploitation to the user benefits.