This was indeed the problem! A bad ENV variable from some dev software was causing windows to run a 32bit cmd.exe.

I've learned that windows has 32bit and 64bit cmd.exe in various places (System32, wow64, amd64_microsoft_... wow64_microsoft_

Getting back to default and 64bit perl now is able to pass 8GB ram with no issues

In reply to Re^2: Perl memory limit - Windows64 strawberry perl by sectokia
in thread Perl memory limit - Windows64 strawberry perl by sectokia

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