Solaris 8 Features and Benefits: Physical Address Extention

Physical Address Extension (PAE)
eXtended MEMory File System (XMEMFS)

Description

With the Pentium Pro processor, Intel introduced Physical Address Extensions (PAE), a 36-bit physical address space that enables IA-32 system memory configurations larger than four gigabytes, the previous limit imposed by 32-bit addresses.

The Solaris^TM 7 Operating Environment introduced support for PAE with the 3/99 update. This initial release made the additional memory accessible only by the Solaris kernel.

The eXtended MEMory File System (XMEMFS) feature added to Solaris 7 software with the 11/99 update provides an API for applications to access memory above four gigabytes.

The Solaris 8 Operating Environment supports up to 64 gigabytes of memory.

Requirements

Intel PentiumPro and Pentium II processors

Benefits

Enables IA-32 systems running the Solaris Operating Environment to use more than four gigabytes of physical memory.

Physical Address Extension (PAE) eXtended MEMory File System (XMEMFS)

Physical Address Extension (PAE)
eXtended MEMory File System (XMEMFS)