Using the SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition on Windows XP pro (32-bit), I noticed that the checkbox was selected to enable AWE (advanced window extensions). I have an Opteron workstation that I can easily upgrade to 8 GB or more, although it’s not difficult to switch from 32-bit Windows XP Pro to the development environment. As far as I can tell, the MMU for Opteron operating in 32-bit mode should support 36-bit physical address space, as well as 32-bit Xeon.
The reduction in SQL Server memory allowed me to provide Analysis Services with more than an elbow.
Does anyone know if AWE Windows XP will support more than 4 GB of RAM that can be used for SQL Server (on a processor with MMU support for this)?
Alternatively, does anyone know what kind of representations of a data dictionary can tell me about using an AWE buffer so that I can try and get a final opinion on using extra memory?
EDIT: For those who are not familiar with it, AWE is a tool that allows you to control the display of virtual physical addresses and arbitrary physical memory of a page in the virtual address space of a 4 GB process and from it, MMU on 32-bit Xeons (and some others processors) actually supports more than 4 GB of physical memory, although one process address space can only see 4 GB at a time. From what I can tell, the MMU on Opteron also has this feature for 32-bit code.
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