How to increase the 2 GB limit when working with SCIA Engineer - 4 Gigabyte Tuning (4GT)

On 32-bit editions of Windows, applications have 4 gigabyte (GB) of virtual address space available.

Normally the virtual address space is divided so that 2 GB is available to the application (SCIA Engineer) and the other 2 GB is available only to the Windows-system.

The 4-gigabyte tuning (4GT) feature increases the virtual address space that is available to SCIA Engineer up to 3 GB,
and reduces the amount of virtual address space that is available to the system to between 1 and 2 GB.

So, SCIA Engineer can address more than 2 Gb of memory when the following conditions are met:

Condition 1:

Use a version of SCIA Engineer higher than 2009.0.298

Condition 2:

Modify the SCIA Engineer executable (esa.exe), and enable it to use more than 2 GB.

Download and run the 4gb_patch.exe, and select esa.exe from the c:\program files\scia\Engineer20xx folder.
A backup copy of the original esa.exe will be made.

(remark:  this step must be repeated when you install a new patch or version !!)

Condition 3:

a) for Windows XP 32 bit :

To enable 4GT, add the /3GB switch to the Boot.ini file.
The /3GB switch is supported on the following systems:

Windows Server 2003
Windows XP Professional
Windows 2000 Datacenter Server
Windows 2000 Advanced Server

b) for Vista 32 bit :

Windows Vista no longer uses the BOOT.INI file, so there is a different method for setting 4GT.
To enable 4GT, use the BCDedit tool:   bcdedit /set IncreaseUserVa 3072

c) for Windows XP 64 bit

The 4GT feature is automatically enabled.

d) for Vista 64 bit

The 4GT feature is automatically enabled.

(remark:  this step must be done only once on your computer)

For more information, see also:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb613473(VS.85).aspx
http://www.cadforum.cz/cadforum_en/qaID.asp?tip=5551
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778(VS.85).aspx