OK.. how do I enable AH to use all of my cores?

[RTHolmes]

yup.

[Kev367th]

No you need an OS that is capable of addressing 4Gb or more ram. I think 64 bit OS is the only ones doing that now.

Err no.
Windows 2003 (32 bit) can address more than 4Gb.

4Gb is nothing to do with 32/64 bit.
It's everything to do with an artificial limit imposed by Microsoft after which you require a 64 bit OR server Operating System.

[Die Hard]

It is a very real limitation. The range of integer values that can be stored in 32 bits is 0 through 4,294,967,295. However a 32 bit system can typically not use the whole address space for RAM as it also needs to use it for video memory, BIOS and other functions. A 32 bit system typically can address about 3 gigs of RAM.

[Skuzzy]

Kev is referencing the poor/substandard use of PAE (Physical Address Extension) in all Microsoft operating systems.  PAE allows a 32 bit OS to address up to 64GB of physical RAM.

[RTHolmes]

... and if it can its using a 36bit processor like pentiums. not true 36bit, but a 32bit processor with some onchip jiggerypokery I dont understand to create a ?virtual/emulated 36bit processor. which is why each individual program can only access 4GB at the same time. my head hurts

thankfully we're on 64bit processors and OSes now so we dont have to worry about it anymore

[68Wooley]

I was gunna say... this is a "look how many cores I have" thread rather than a "how do I get AH to run better" thread.

Cores are the new MHz in terms of meaningless measures of system performance.