It's 64-bit Python:- >>> sys.maxsize 9223372036854775807 >>> log2(sys.maxsize) 63.0 >>> sys.maxsize > 2**32 True -- View this message in context: http://pygame-users.25799.x6.nabble.com/Out-of-memory-loading-very-large-image-tp2481p2486.html Sent from the pygame-users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.