Hi anduins,
we should not mix up two different issues concerning RAM limits, i think:
1. Operating system capabilities and
2. hardware capabilities.
Concerning point 1:
According to
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/pl ... AEmem.mspx , Windows2000 Professional and WindowsXP Professional are able to handle up to 4 GB of total physical RAM. By design, up to 2 GB can be used by the system itself, the other 2 GB can be used by applications. The "/3GB switch" makes Windows using only 1 GB for itself and 3 GB for applications (max values - as far as the applications are designed for it).
Concerning point 2:
That's a question of mainboard hardware design (as i already mentioned in my previous post).
I am still searching for a Athlon64 /socket 754 mainboard that is designed for supporting 4 GB of physical RAM - i did not find one so far...
"Anyway it would be nice to reuse at least the RAM, so buying 2 GB now and 2 GB in the future... I don't know... May be roday's best RAM will be too old in 2 years."
I myself have made bad experience concerning incompatibility with mixing old and new RAM!
So I do very much feel (last but not least with regard to financial limits) like it is a good idea to confine oneself today on an Athlon64 system with 2 GB of RAM. This system will surely be able to serve for playing a reasonable amount of stops, as far as i understand even with Hauptwerk 2....
Besides all that computing power considerations, I would like to recommend also to consider the installation effort needed - and the restrictions - to get a reasonable fast booting Windows system (which I would want for playing in a church even more than at home). The "bigger" your hardware is, the longer it will take from switching the computer on to get it into a "playable mode"...