Activate 3Gb option in Windows Database Oracle 10g

Question

Hi
We are facing ORA 4030 -  Oracle Out of memory issues after upgrade to Oracle 10.2.0.4 (32 Bit Machine).
We want to activate the 3GB option in Windows by adding /3GB at the end of boot.ini file.
We will make sure to take the backup of boot.ini file.
But
One of the prerequisite is
An additional prerequisite for using 3GB of address space is a corresponding indicator in the header of the executable. You use this indicator to signal to NT that the application (ORACLE.EXE) can work with
3GB of address space. If this indicator is not set, this means that only 2GB is available to the application, even though you are using the 3GB option and the NT Enterprise Edition.
1. How can we put the corresponding indicator in the header of the executable?
2. And in which Executable?
Much appreciate the response..
Regards

Answer 1

Hello Rajesh,
you don't havt to changa any executable.
You just have to add the entries /PAE /3GB to your boot.ini.
The user account under which Oracle Database runs (SAPSERVICESID), must have the "Lock memory pages" Windows 2000 and Windows XP privilege.
USE_INDIRECT_DATA_BUFFERS=TRUE must be present in the initialization parameter file for the database instance that will use VLM support. If this parameter is not set, then Oracle Database 10g Release 1 (10.1) or later behaves in exactly the same way as previous releases.
Initialization parameters DB_BLOCK_BUFFERS and DB_BLOCK_SIZE must be set to values you have chosen for Oracle Database.
Dynamic SGA and multiple block size are not supported with VLM. When VLM is enabled, the following new buffer cache parameters are not supported:
   DB_CACHE_SIZE
   DB_2K_CACHE_SIZE
   DB_4K_CACHE_SIZE
   DB_8K_CACHE_SIZE
   DB_16K_CACHE_SIZE
   DB_32K_CACHE_SIZE
To select the block size for the instance, use the initialization parameter DB_BLOCK_SIZE. The buffer cache size is set by the initialization parameter DB_BLOCK_BUFFERS.
Registry parameter AWE_WINDOW_MEMORY must be created and set in the appropriate key for your Oracle home. This parameter is specified in bytes and has a default value of 1 GB. AWE_WINDOW_MEMORY tells Oracle Database how much of its 3 GB address space to reserve for mapping in database buffers.
This memory comes from the 3 GB virtual address space in Oracle Database, so its value must be less than 3 GB. Setting this parameter to a large value has the effect of using more of the address space for buffers and using less AWE memory for buffers. However, since accessing AWE buffers is somewhat slower than accessing virtual address space buffers, Oracle recommends that you tune these parameters to be as large as possible without adversely limiting database operations.
In general, the higher AWE_WINDOW_MEMORY is set, the fewer connections and memory allocations will be possible for Oracle Database. The lower AWE_WINDOW_MEMORY is set, the lower the performance.
Once this parameter is set, Oracle Database can be started and will function exactly the same as before except that more database buffers are available to the instance. In addition, disk I/O may be reduced because more Oracle Database data blocks can be cached in the System Global Area (SGA).
For more details please see ...
SAP Note 441663 - USING > 3 GB of memory for Oracle on WINDOWS platforms
or
http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B19306_01/win.102/b14304/architec.htm#i1005826
Regards
Sascha