Can detail texture run on a 32 bit os? Or is the memory too limited? I keep getting a message saying I run out of memory even though I have more memory then a 32 bit os can use.

Should really only depend on the CPU. Ideally you'd want a CPU with 6+ physical cores.

Also the game is still a 32-bit app (for now) which means it can't address more than 4 GB total memory (system + video) at any time, and 2 GB on a 32-bit OS (3 GB with the large adress setting)

Can you post your full specs? Example: Windows 7 64-bit, 6 GB DDR3, i5-2500K, GTX 560 Ti 1 GB ...

Windows xp 32
4 gigs DDR 2
GTX 260 (800 something video ram)
Core two quad 2.67 GHz

the wasitland uses 1.7 gigs of memory without deatil texture. When I activate it I use 3.25 gigs. The game runs fine with detail texure in samller maps, but the two waist lands run out of memory.

You answered your question yourself.

Ii doesn't matter if you have more memory installed than your OS can handle as the game is running inside the OS and shouldn't be able to adress more memory than the OS can allocate.
The theoretical max at 32bit addressing range is 4GB.

Addiitionally, the limit for XP32 is 3 GB as the remaining 1 GB is reserved for the OS itself to keep it running wile using other software.
If the game now tries to reserve more memory than XP32 will guarantee (3GB), the game or even the OS will freeze or crash even if you have more physical memory installed.

Will we get an official response from id regarding this. If its true why did id not mention this when relising the patch? All they said is you need more cores!

Because ID has got nothing to do with this.
Ask Microsoft why they still sell 32 bit versions of their operating systems when every single cpu sold over the last 5-6 years is able to handle 64bits.

Get rid of your 32bit OS and go for 64bits.
If you don't want to change your system completely, you might consider getting a swappable harrdrive on which you install an additional 64 bit system.
I've got two system drives, one running on XP32 for old stuff and XP64 for all software requiring 64 bits. I swap them whenever i need to.

Works pretty well.

Yes but id never said detail texture would use more ram. They just said more cores. Can't detail texture be baked into mega texture with out the over head?

Logically yes... seriously their texture detail svcks awfully bad anyway, it looks like bad noise.

I thought we were getting detail textures, not "texture detail." Detail textures actually look good. I don't understand why texture detail was even made, it looks horrible yet requires tons of power. All idSoftware had to do was release detail textures, yet they didn't. That would've actually been worth the wait, and made the game look HD.

Yeah, I can't run the texture detail smoothly, but I don't care, because as I said it looks awfull and I preffer how the game looks without it.

The 4BG limit will hit more often the more technologically advanced games will become.
So don't think about it and change your OS. 64 bits is the future and the future has already begun.

As for the megatexture stuff: There are technical limits to what size these textures can have.
If you want to double the resolution of a texture horizontically and vertically (which is necessary to add more detail), you will need 4 times the memory to store it. So if the standard megatexture used by Rage would require let's say about 1 gigabyte of memory, you would need 4 gigabytes for the larger version so this is not really an option.

That's why ID used some shader on the existing texures to sharpen things up without heavily increasing the need for memory.
The reason this compromise needs more memory after all might be related to additional buffers needed for doing the calculations on the textures.

The problem with megatextures is that this technology is somewhat memory hungry, but it gives maximum freedom for the artists.

After playing Rage for a while now and switching back to other first class games like Gears of War3 running on the latest installment of the Unreal engine or even Bethesda's Skyrim, i noticed that most other games have higher pixel count on their textures but are so repetetive compared to Rages unique design that it almost feels like switching back to an older hardware when playing these games.

Megatexture is a compromise at this time giving uniqe design at the expense of texture resolution.
But it's definitely the way to go for in the future as hardware power and especially memory size will grow.

Heck 64bit OS is the way to go since you can now get 24GB of memory for just http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220515 dollars.

windows 7 is about 300 before tax for a version that can take advantage of this much memory.

Not even close. You just pull these numbers from ...

Win 7 Home Premium good for 16G $100
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116986

Win 7 Pro good for whatever RAM $140
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116992

Windows 7 Ultimate. Thats where I got the 300 number. Windows Premium does not cont since that guy had 24 gigs.

Yea and it sold out right after I posted about it here.
Knew I should have pulled the trigger when it was still available and only $99.99 with free shipping.
Now I need it even more than ever since I just ordered a EVGA SR2.....

Not that you need it, Win 7 Pro will do fine, but Win 7 U is $190:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116997