Re: PAE and PSE ??

["H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>]

Rafael J. Wysocki wrote:
> 
> Well, "AMD64 Architecture Programmer’s Manual" says the following:
> 
> The choice of 2 Mbyte or 4 Mbyte as the large physical-page size
> depends on the value of CR4.PSE and CR4.PAE, as follows:
> - If physical-address extensions are enabled (CR4.PAE=1), the
>    large physical-page size is 2 Mbytes, regardless of the value
>    of CR4.PSE.
> - If physical-address extensions are disabled (CR4.PAE=0)
>    and CR4.PSE=1, the large physical-page size is 4 Mbytes.
> - If both CR4.PAE=0 and CR4.PSE=0, the only available page
>    size is 4 Kbytes.
> 

That would be a retroactive redef on the part of AMD; it probably makes 
sense for x86-64 if someone thinks that is may drop support for 4 MB 
pages at some point in the distant future.  Still, I'm not sure Intel 
would agree with the definition as stated, although I haven't looked in 
the docs.

This is all extremely theoretical, since there has never been a chip 
with PAE=1 and PSE=0, and I wouldn't expect one to appear any time soon.

	-hpa