The community frequently mislabels this tool as the "8GB Patch." This is technically incorrect and stems from a conflation of two concepts:

Fallout: New Vegas is a 32-bit application. By default, 32-bit applications on Windows are limited to a maximum of of RAM, regardless of how much physical RAM your computer has. Because FNV is an open-world game with heavy modding potential, hitting this 2GB limit causes the game to crash instantly (commonly known as "Out of Memory" crashes).