Again, it is not a sins, Stardock or Ironclad issue... but a Microsoft licensing problem...
Since 1995, all 32 bits processor are in fact 36 bits... good for 64 gb... on 32 bits professional Microsoft OS, user can access these extra memory... the only Microsoft limit is 4gb by application...
Now, any people who design low price application ( game y example ) will target the more used OS... who is mainly home edition of Windows OS...
Windows xp starter 32 bit is lilited at 0.5 gb, Vista 32 bits starter at 1gb, Windows 7 32 bits starter at 2 gb, Xp/Vista/7 32 bits home/professional edition at 4gb ( where 2 gb is reserved for the system )... a old 32 bit windows 2000 can reach 32 gb, 32 bits windows server 2003 can reach 64 gb...
A interesting article... http://www.geoffchappell.com/viewer.htm?doc=notes/windows/license/memory.htm ... with Microsoft, you have what you pay for... don't hope for any magical software from them who will make run your home edition like a datacenter edition...
For info, actual processor called 64 bits are in fact limited to 52 bits for the adress range and 48 bits for the virtual address space... in 32 bits desktop windows OS, kernel limit these virtual address to 2 gb... there is tip and trick who will allow you to see and use more ram ( PAE, 3GB, etc ) but one single 32 bit application cannot use more that these 2 gb virtual address space ( several application running together can go over these limit )...
My biggest sins game was a huge multistar map, using 10 different races ( mod ) and after several days playing, have reach a 11.5 gb use by sins... not using direct and not using a windows OS... if somebody have a 32 bits server edition of Windows ( from 2000 of after ), it will be interesting to test sins... i am not sure that it will crash at the 2gb... if sins crash with PAE, it is always possible to try with PSE-36 ( introduced in from x-86 PIII, allowing a max of 64 gb ram too, hierarchy of page tables is not changed, page entries keep their old 32-bit format...
There is a lot of topic similar to these one on the forum... it always end by people being angry against Stardock or Ironclad, both not being responsible that the majority of gamer are buying crap OS... Microsoft make good OS like the server version... in fact, they create first the server version, remove feature for creating a limited desktop edition...
Finaly, the LAA thing is only changing a flag in the application allowing it to use LA... but if the application was not compiled LAA, it will change nothing... if you have the source code, adding the LAA can really be useful