i did some quick testing in and out of trading menus (the one area my game consistently crashes alot) and my game doesnt seem to crash as much. it still happens but i noticed a big drop since it used to happen 25% of the time. now its down to 5 or 10%. this is unscientific of course, just a guestimation. i wasnt sure if i was supposed to wait for an update for that 4GB thing for the new NVSE so i tried it without it. has anyone else noticed a marked improvement? i might just get rid of it if other people are getting better performance as well.

The 4GB loader shouldn't affect performance regardless (unless it does more than set the large address aware flag). The entire purpose of it is to let New Vegas use up to 4 GB of RAM, instead of only up to 2 GB of RAM. In the case of memory-bloating mods, like high resolution textures, the 4GB enabler prevents New Vegas from crashing if it uses more than 2 GB of RAM (though it'd still crash if it got up to 4 GB).

Also, somewhere it was stated that you don't need to wait for an update, it should always work.

Queue

the 4GB Enabler is a life saver for me. without it I frequently CTD when moving between very large -- memory consuming -- cells (like WorldOfPain's Underground).

LAA only allows for 3GB max, not 4.

Just an FYI. Reason being that if it were 4GB then it could accidentally cut off memory from the OS crashing your whole computer.

Correct me if I'm wrong, isn't that only the case if you're using a 32bit operating system?

If I'm remembering correctly using the LAA flag under a 64bit operating system will allow the 32bit software to access the full 4GB.

...which means you shouldn't be using the 4g enabler in the first place.

The 4g enabler has also been very helpful to me, I run alot of mods as well as quite a few texture replacers, which can get pretty taxing on some systems.

32bit software only allows access to 2GB by default in a 32bit or 64bit environment;
LAA set on that software under a 32bit OS it allows access to 3GB, LAA set on that software under a 64bit OS would allow 4GB.

Either way there is an advantage to it if you can handle it and need the extra address space.