Running Linux now with just under 3.5 GB used, running Firefox with 8 tabs, and the Steam Client open because I was gaming a few hours ago. This is on KDE Plasma Desktop, and nothing was ever optimized by myself for RAM efficiency.
This is just how it works out of the box.I think a lot of PC users are spoiled, to be perfectly honest.
My work PC is an ancient micro Lenovo thing with a Skylake processor and 8GB of RAM, and it runs Windows 11 perfectly adequately. I generally need about 10 Firefox tabs open, as well as various other programs, and the only issue I find is that new Excel instances take a while to load - everything else feels perfectly reasonable. Don’t tell anybody at work, but it even managed to play World of Warcraft at low graphics at the same time.
Not that this is a defence of Microsoft.
Every Windows 11 system I’ve used with 8GB of RAM ran like total shit.
It is tradition
Windows 11 with 16 also runs like hot garbage, so I’m not sure if it’s a ram issue. I’m sure more ram helps, but I don’t think it’s the main problem. I’ve not used 8 GB in a while though, so maybe some updates really changed things.
experienced this first hand the other day… fresh boot and the damn thing is using like 11gb. luckily this was not my machine, and I’m on a Mac, but I felt the guys pain.
My work computer is an i9 with 64GB of RAM and it also runs like shit. It’s really noticeable how bad performance is since I switched to Linux full time on my personal systems and have a frequent comparison point.
Well, work machines have increasing counts of security agents. Mine has three and I’ve seen more. Plus Teams which uses enough RAM to run a proper OS all by itself.
True. We buy pretty good PCs and they run okay. But if I put vanilla Windows, even Win11, or any Linux, they’re absolutely screaming fast.
Exactly my experience. My Linux machines with 16GB of ram run circles around my work imposed W11 machine that has 64GB of ram.
8GB is enough for Windows 11. Issues only arise if you open any applications while Windows is running.
I bet if I tried Windows 11 with 128 GB, I would still think it runs like garbage.
Well how about 256gb?
With 8GB you can boot Windows, the OS, no problem, but basically cannot run applications/games. You cannot use it, just stare at the screen doing nothing :)
Every Windows 11 system I’ve used
with 8GB of RAMran like total shit.FTFY
Theres online comparisons somewhere on ram/cpu etc… win 11 is VERY bad at 8gb in most cases. Linux at 8gb mostly fly. Hell mac os works well at 8.
Its just microslop doing their thing.
Really depends on what you’re trying to do. Done a few budget builds for folks who were attached to Windows but don’t multitask.
Someone who keeps their activities limited to one browser tab and one document/spreadsheet can get by just fine on 8GB.
Might seem very restrictive to most of us, especially here on Lemmy, but there are people who live their lives just like this.
Also, bit cheeky of Microsoft to do this right as they’re introducing new Surfaces with 8GB at what used to be the 16GB model’s price point, lol.
8GB should be fine for Windows 11. However, the OS is so bloated that it simply isn’t.
Microsoft should fix that.
They can’t. The spaghetti code base is ancient. You can’t really take anything out at this point because it’s what keeps it alive.
I watch a Rerez video where he looks at force feedback flightsticks. These sticks came out around the year 2000, and use ports that modern PCs just don’t have.
He tried plugging one made by microsoft into windows 11. This stick was made 26 years ago. It just worked. No setup. No drivers. Just, 26 year old stick.
The reason? They’re still including drivers from Windows ME into Windows 11.
This is one very niche example, but the 300kb or whatever a driver size is, is being preinstalled in all windows 11 instalations. And Windows 10, and Windows 8, Windows 7, and Windows Vista, and Windows XP.
I’m gonna guess you can count on one hand the number of people using this flight stick on Windows 11. It only works with a handful of games, because it only ever worked on a handful of games.
Why would this be included by default on Vista or later?
Imagine how many thousands of other files are like this. Taking up space, without a reason.
Taking up space, without a reason.
Compatibility is the reason.
That… doesn’t make sense. The Windows NT line changed the way hardware and drivers interacted with a new Hardware Abstraction Layer, so a WinME driver wouldn’t load in Win11.
Additionally, Win7 changed it so that drivers require certification and signature, which I could guess the certification would come in grandfathered, but the signature certainly wouldn’t be there for a WinME driver.
Why even complain about a 300kb driver sitting in System/SysWOW64, as it isn’t going to reside in RAM until the actual device is plugged in… so it’s actually a good thing to keep. I’m glad they don’t act as the arbiter of what is too old and force people to purchase new hardware when the old stuff still works.
What I’m saying is, it shouldn’t take up space by default.
If YOU want to install it, great. You can spend 30 seconds installing the driver. Why force 99.99% of users to take on bloat, when they’ll never use it. Same thing with additional languages. If you speak other languages, great. You install them on your device. No reason I should have French installed on my device.
Now add the same idea with every bit of software. The OS itself should be bare minimum. Then you can add to your own installation.
Having the drivers installed is fine and, quite frankly, good; for exactly the reason you point out. When they aren’t being used they are only taking up disk space. And that is OK, nobody is particularly upset with Windows’ disk space.
It is the RAM usage, telemetry, and other running processes that just don’t need to be running. These are the things that make a Windows setup so bloated. One doesn’t need to reach out and tell MS every time you open the start menu, one doesn’t need Candy Crush and One Drive ads appearing in the OS. There is no good way to turn all that off. That is just using resources and making the OS worse for users.
It shouldn’t take a measurable amount of time to find the calculator when I start typing “cal” in the application menu. And yet it frequently takes upwards of 10 seconds for anything to show up at all.
8 GB is NOT fine in Windows 11. I had to install Linux on my father’s laptop that has 8G GB so that it becomes useful. Technically speaking because Windows 11 is so bloated, 16 GB should remain the baseline.
My gf was complaining her laptop was slow, even though she bought it new last year and it wasn’t a cheapo. I went to take a look, 8gb win 11 laptop, hammering more than 7 gb of memory while doing literally nothing after being turned on. “Maybe there’s something wrong” I cleaned up her startup apps, uninstalled some stuff that she never used (and came as bloat from samsung), did some optimizations… Restarted, and still at 7+ gb of memory use. Yep, it’s fucked.
if that’s what led your father to move to linux, I’d say that 8 gb in windows 11 is PERFECTLY fine.
My PC has 16gb of ram, but it won’t run Windows 11.
It won’t run Windows 11, because I refuse to install such a rubbish invasive AI laced OS.
I have 16GB in my laptop, and it took 4 full desktop VMS running at once to finally make it struggle with opensuse KDE as the host.
My work computer sits at 8GB used with basic office things running and a tab or two open on a browser. I guess if you only have one browser tab open at a time you could do 8GB on 11.
This sounds like the same Vista requirements back in the day. Sure it “ran” on 512mb of RAM, but you sure as shit weren’t doing anything else than looking at the desktop.
I got 16 gb on my W11 laptop, and I’m regularly bouncing off the 13 gb point where swap/ compression/ whatever kicks in and shit gets slow, doing relatively benign shit like browsing the web, YouTube and Gmail open, and vscode running working on some python shit. On 8 gb I’d probably have to use my phone for everything except vscode to get it to fit. It’s not the lightest possible workload, but it shouldn’t be slamming swap so regularly.
Prefetch / Superfetch may represent a portion of that usage.
It’s absolutely insane an OS has such re4quirements.
An OS is basically just a kernel with a shell on top for starting apps. Although the kernel of a modern OS is a technological marvel, it doesn’t even require 1GB. The requirement should not be specified by the OS, but for what software is run on top of it.
On Linux you can Run a full fledged desktop, and a web browser and office pack on 2GB easy, and with 4GB even have breathing room, and even have 8 TTY’s available just in case.Absolute bullshit! That is not at all true, at least not until they bother to optimize their OS and software.
I’m old enough to remember when everyone generally agreed that using fewer resources is a good thing.
“admits” seems to indicate that it’s true. I would never run a windows 10 machine on 8 gigs of ram let alone windows 11. It may boot but you will struggle to do anything worthwhile on it.
I can’t even get the PC to not be using 95-100% ram on 16gb…
takes 10-15 minutes to be SOMEWHAT stable after a fresh boot.
it’s a work pc so idgaf but there’s NO WAY IN SHIT that 8gb will function.
If you want to get the most of your hardware, Windows 11 is not the way.
It could run on 8GB of RAM but that would require trimming out a lot of the shareholder-mandated bloat
