> I know the CPU was 32-bit, so 4GiB is the upper limit in that regard. Not necessarily. Just because a CPU has a 32-bit virtual address space doesn't mean it

> I know the CPU was 32-bit, so 4GiB is the upper limit in that regard. Not necessarily. Just because a CPU has a 32-bit virtual address space doesn't mean it has a 32-bit physical address space. PAE (Physical Address Extension) is a paging mode for x86 CPUs that offers a 36-bit physical address space on 32-bit CPUs.