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Modern CPUs can have L3 cache in the range of tens of megabytes (e.g. 24MB). W98SE requires at least 16MB of RAM to run (24MB recommended). Is it possible to use the L3 cache as RAM, without any external RAM attached?

SoniEx2
  • 2,907

2 Answers2

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Simply put, no.

While your CPU may have that L1/2/3 cache available, your OS will expect it to be used only for the CPU. The OS is going to want actual memory, in the form of RAM.

If you are gung-ho about using Windows 98, do yourself two favours:

  1. Get Windows 98 SE - it works much nicer in my experience
  2. Run it in a Virtual Machine. Virtualbox is free, open source, and available on almost every major platform.
Canadian Luke
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No. Motherboards require memory to function. Cache memory cannot be used as RAM.

Keltari
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