Is there a limit for SGA_MAX_SIZE on windows Server 2003 Standard Edition

Question

I have a 9.2.0.8 Standard Edition running on windows Server 2003 Standard Edition. I cannot set SGA_MAX_SIZE to more than 1.7G. I have total of 3G RAM on that machine.

Answer 1

In order to use memory over 4 GB the /PAE flag must be set and Oracle must be tuned
accordingly. As mentioned above, for using memory over 4 GB and less than 16 GB, the
/3GB flag can be set as well. Oracle uses memory above 4 GB by taking advantage of
the AWE (Address Windowing Extension) feature built into Windows 2000, Windows
2003 and Windows XP.
In order to use this memory, the Oracle administrator account (either LocalSystem or the
domain user that installed Oracle) must have the “Lock memory pages” privilege set. In
addition the AWE_WINDOW_MEMORY parameter must also be created and set. This
parameter specifies how much of the 3 GB virtual memory space allocated to Oracle
should be used for mapping database buffers. The default value of 1GB should be
sufficient and increasing this value could be detrimental, since you only have 3 GB of
virtual memory to use. The higher the value of AWE_WINDOW_MEMORY that you
have set, the more likely it is that you will experience user memory issues. Start with the
default value of 1 GB and tune upwards only if you need to.
Once these steps have been completed, larger memory can be set by configuring
DB_BLOCK_SIZE and DB_BLOCK_BUFFERS initialization parameters. When using
Very Large Memory (VLM) you should use DB_BLOCK_BUFFERS rather than
DB_CACHE_SIZE in order to configure memory.