http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=3044The short of the article is that under both Windows XP and Windows Vista 32-bit, each application is limited to 2GB of address space. For some reason in Vista, applications - especially games - are using a
shit-ton more address space than under XP... up to 40% more in the worst case. We're talking 2.16GB vs. 1.3GB.
This results in a much higher risk of an in-game crash in Vista rather than in XP in games that use a lot of address space. The article mentions
Supreme Commander,
Company of Heroes, and
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadows of Chernobyl as some of the worst offenders.
But it is expected - obviously - that more and more games and other applications are going to be using more and more address space and this problem will become more pronounced until either developers consider seriously the 2GB limit, more people make the switch to 64-bit, or Microsoft fixes the problem in Vista.