32-bit OS. Will it ever use full 4 GB? Other restrictions of 32-bit OS?

[ralphwiggum1]

Just curious if anyone has an answer.

Reviews said the Idol 4S has 4GB RAM installed, but only 3.5GB is usuable due to 32-bit OS. Any word on if this will be updated on the device?

Also, due to the 32-bit OS, are the Snapdragon chips being fully utilized? Are the ARMv8 instructions running? With Android, I believe 32-bit OS does not run ARMv8.

 

[spicypadthai]

While there are ways around it, the short answer is a 32 bit OS is limited to 4 GB. But you also need address space for other hardware components, i.e., CPU, graphics, etc., so that's why the OS only "sees" 3.5. In a 32 bit OS, there are 2^32 possible addresses which = 4,294,967,296 bytes divided by 1024 is 4,194,304 KB divided by 1024 is 4,096 MB divided by 1024 = 4GB

 

[a5cent]

Here's a more detailed explanation:

https://blog.codinghorror.com/dude-wheres-my-4-gigabytes-of-ram/

 

[nate0]

It is in Microsoft's best interest to move mobile devices to 64bit. Hence the whole ARM+W10 movement.

 

[zocster]

It is in Microsoft's best interest to move mobile devices to 64bit. Hence the whole ARM+W10 movement.

Wonder if they are any faster at delivery compared to ...

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