32-bit memory limit removal utility

I recently came across a particularly magical piece of software located here for free. It allows 32-bit programs to address more than 2 GB of memory. It may only work for 64-bit systems though, not sure (i.e. those with CPUs that can work on 64-bit OSs).

I mention this because Xara sometimes crashes with out of memory errors, such as when making large panoramas or doing something else that consumes GBs of memory. By using this utility on the Xara exe to allow it to address more memory than normal, the crashes can stop. This also applies to any other memory intensive software that shows similar behaviour, and makes them much more stable.

The instructions for using the utility to modify exes is below:

MAKE SURE YOU DO A BACKUP COPY OF THE xtreme.exe FILE BEFORE CHANGING IT JUST IN CASE YOU GET INTO TROUBLE

open the program
goto file > open
then find the exe file... in this case it would be xtreme.exe in ./program files/xara/...

On the left side you'll see "NT HEADER".... "DOS HEADER"... etc
Highlight "FILE HEADER" under "NT HEADER"
On the right side you'll see a chart and in the bottom right corner you will see "CLICK HERE"
Click on that and a check box menu system will open.
Scroll down the menu list until you see "app can handle > than 2gig address space" and check that.
Save the file and close.


Xhris

Well, it will not push the limit further than about 3.5Gb anyway.
The address space remains 4Gb.

Apparently quite an important factor is if you have a graphics card with (for example) 1GB RAM (or SLi with 2GB total) as it becomes part of the 4GB limiting equation which for 32bit 'gamers' PC's is quite serious.
Further reading here.

Panoramas a best handled externally or prepared for the internal panorama tool prior to importing in my experience.
Also, another member contacted me with similar OOM errors trying to create a photo collage. His xar file became 150mb and caused big problems for him.
Again, best to prepare images before importing I think.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by covoxer

Well, it will not push the limit further than about 3.5Gb anyway.
The address space remains 4Gb.

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Yes, in one case, instead of Xara crashing at 1.5 GB in one instance, it only crashed at 3.5 GB in the same case. (These crashes BTW were exotic and no one would ever normally come across them.)

Also, even normally, I've never had panoramas crash on me in Xara. Although, I usually use Pan Studio anyway for my large 360° panoramas.

As for graphics card memory, I can confirm this is completely irrelevant to this utility (I have mountains of graphics memory) and it is a totally separate thing in this case.

Also, just for my interest, Sledger, what do you mean by preparing images before dealing with Xara's internal panorama stitcher? I ask because I'm not so sure I agree that this preparation is needed. The stitcher just works for me, although I've not really pushed it hard (I've pushed Pan studio hard though and it's fine).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by covoxer

Well, it will not push the limit further than about 3.5Gb anyway.
The address space remains 4Gb.

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On a 64bit OS you can have the full 4G for the application, if you use this switch.

On a 32-bit OS it may be able to expand the app's space up to 3G (from the normal 2G), but only if the OS has been configured to allow this.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sledger

Apparently quite an important factor is if you have a graphics card with (for example) 1GB RAM (or SLi with 2GB total) as it becomes part of the 4GB limiting equation which for 32bit 'gamers' PC's is quite serious.

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This conflates two subtly different issues. Like you say, the graphics card memory uses part of the system's total address space, which is much more of an issue on 32bit machines than 64bit machines.

The flag which this post is talking about setting allows Windows to change the way virtual address space is arranged for 32-bit applications rather than for the system as a whole - by default they only get 2G of address space, with this flag set they may get 3G or 4G.

Even on a 64-bit machine with umpteen G of memory, a 32-bit application will normally only get 2G of address space (and it would still get this 2G space even if the machine had 1G of physical RAM).

Xhris,
Does this work with Vista 64bit? I can't seem to follow or find:

open the program
goto file > open
then find the exe file... in this case it would be xtreme.exe in ./program files/xara/...

On the left side you'll see "NT HEADER".... "DOS HEADER"... etc
Highlight "FILE HEADER" under "NT HEADER"

Do you right-click on Xtreme.exe?

Jim

I don't really know how else to explain it. So I'll re-explain it and see if that helps. see pic also.

1. After you've installed the software, open "CFF Explorer.exe" located in the './program files/NTCore/Explorer Suite' directory
2. Go to File > open, then navigate to and select xtreme.exe from './program files/xara/...' ensuring you've made a backup of it first.
3. Highlight "FILE HEADER" under "NT HEADER"
4. On the right side you'll see a chart and in the bottom right corner you will see "CLICK HERE". Click on that and a check box menu system will open.
5. Scroll down the menu list until you see "app can handle > than 2gig address space" and check that.
6. Save the file and close.
At step 6, it might throw a wobbler and make you save the file with a different name in some other folder, but just rename it.exe afterwards and move it to the xara folder.

Found it. Thanks, I'll give it a try.

Jim

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Xhris

I recently came across a particularly magical piece of software located here for free. It allows 32-bit programs to address more than 2 GB of memory. It may only work for 64-bit systems though, not sure (i.e. those with CPUs that can work on 64-bit OSs).

I mention this because Xara sometimes crashes with out of memory errors, such as when making large panoramas or doing something else that consumes GBs of memory. By using this utility on the Xara exe to allow it to address more memory than normal, the crashes can stop. This also applies to any other memory intensive software that shows similar behaviour, and makes them much more stable.

The instructions for using the utility to modify exes is below:

MAKE SURE YOU DO A BACKUP COPY OF THE xtreme.exe FILE BEFORE CHANGING IT JUST IN CASE YOU GET INTO TROUBLE

open the program
goto file > open
then find the exe file... in this case it would be xtreme.exe in ./program files/xara/...

On the left side you'll see "NT HEADER".... "DOS HEADER"... etc
Highlight "FILE HEADER" under "NT HEADER"
On the right side you'll see a chart and in the bottom right corner you will see "CLICK HERE"
Click on that and a check box menu system will open.
Scroll down the menu list until you see "app can handle > than 2gig address space" and check that.
Save the file and close.


Xhris

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Xhris you are the DBs (leave you to figure that one out) I hadn't realised Xara wasn't using all the memory on the 64bit until I did a Google search when it kept on 'Out of Memory'ing on me. This worked a treat and I feel forced to open as many files as I can to try and force it to crash :-) Thanks and thanks again!

Sean

In line with the competition, Xara will no doubt make a true 64-bit version of the software eventually which should remove the need for this utility. Just have to wait I guess.