A modern game rig should have at least 16GB of RAM for smooth performance.
A modern game rig should have at least 16GB of RAM for smooth performance.
But in this case, windows behaves differently; the more ram you have, the more it claims to use… though that doesn’t always reflect real usage. For instance, with 16gb, most games seem to require around 13gb, which seems odd. It makes no sense since not every title demands that much. Monitoring tools confirm this, yet I can run the same games on an 8gb system and see only 6-7gb reported as used—likely a more accurate figure. Surely only certain titles really need that much memory. Even video processing doesn’t typically consume so many resources; for example, re-encoding videos usually needs about 8gb, suggesting these apps are poorly optimized or exaggerated in their claims. It’s probably because some software uses outdated or overhyped versions like “Davinci,” leading people to assume high ram usage when it’s actually minimal. : p So, it seems reasonable that 16gb works fine and most users don’t need more. I’m okay with DDR5 but would still suggest using two sticks rather than four, particularly for Ryzen processors. DDR4 might be acceptable, though it feels a bit strange to rely on older technology unless there’s a clear reason.
I really aim to boost my ThinkPad to 8GB memory. It’s not that I rely on it often.
I use my sim-racers at 5876x1080 resolution, and the highest I've seen is around 10GB. A 16GB option would still be plenty. It would take a 16GB dual channel memory with quick timings every day over 32Gigs for some slower sticks that have poor timing—some don’t even support XMP or work well in dual channel.
My typical storage is around 32GB, but 16GB works fine for light tasks. Right now I'm using about 29GB or 64GB, and I don’t even have a game running. Daedalus mainnet uses roughly 9.8GB, with 5GB for Photoshop and the rest for Chrome, Edge and smaller apps. After testing 32GB on my main machine, I got tired of constantly closing apps to open something new.