Real world difference - 16GB vs 32GB memory

Soldato
Joined
22 Apr 2016
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3,432
I’ve never exceeded 16 whilst gaming. I have exceeded it during Lightroom and Photoshop so another 16 went in pronto but like the ‘last’ four cores of my 8 core cpu the ‘last’ 16 gigs of ram sits idle most of the time.
 
Caporegime
Joined
22 Nov 2005
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45,279
It doesnt help, but both GTA5 and FF15 will max out my ram (when I had 16 gig) even with chrome closed.

Someone on reddit with 64gig of ram managed to get FF15 to use almost 40 gig of ram.
but I doubt theres even a performance impact over 16gb of memory.

so for me would make no sense to get 32gb over 16gb with memory prices as they are
 
Soldato
Joined
27 Feb 2015
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12,621
but I doubt theres even a performance impact over 16gb of memory.

so for me would make no sense to get 32gb over 16gb with memory prices as they are

if you got 16 gig of ram and your game is trying to use more you think there is no impact?

Without enough swap system stability is compromised, at best game forces shutdown, at worst OS crashes, for FF15 this was talked about on steam and reddit.
With enough swap game will slow down loading data from storage instead of ram.

These is what made people discover the memory leaks.

On twitch you can sometimes see people playing gta5/fivem with not enough ram get issues with broken textures etc,. when they run out of ram and have to relaunch the game.

During division 2 private beta I played it whilst queuing to go on a fivem server, fivem even just in a game queue uses a fair amount of ram, chrome was also running, and I ended up even having to shut down the browser with 32 gig of ram, 2 games at once plus browser was pushing the rig too far.

I accept that not everyone needs more ram, but I dont understand why people refuse to accept some people need more, I see this stubbornness in multiple places. They think everyone must use their PC in a certian way and all software is written perfect and optimised for low memory cases.
 
Man of Honour
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Hampshire
16GB is plenty for all but some niche cases (memory leaks or maybe the odd specific game playing in 4k resolution with massive textures packs etc). Even 12GB is generally OK
 
Man of Honour
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13 Oct 2006
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91,163
Is firefox regarded as better than Chrome or Opera? I can never settle for a browser, currently on Opera.

Personally I prefer Firefox but I'm not 100% happy with it - especially it seems to use a lot more RAM these days than it should even taking into account the changes for threading and tab isolation, etc. for improved stability.
 
Soldato
Joined
27 Feb 2015
Posts
12,621
firefox uses a lot less memory and has a better session management, but it is slow.

Vivaldi is built on chrome but has much better UI options. I have been using it on one of my windows VM's. e.g. you can disable the horrible forced auto complete behaviour in the address bar.
 
Soldato
Joined
12 Apr 2007
Posts
11,845
I use Firefox on PC and opera on mobile devices. Opera seems to be the only mobile browser that does text reflow properly and it has built in vpn and adblocker.

I've never really understood the appeal of chrome. It's more difficult to customise than Firefox. You can't even set it to delete history and cookies etc. When you close it down, you have to do it manually.
 
Associate
Joined
7 Feb 2019
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116
Location
Yorkshire
Only time I have found 16GB to be lacking is running a few busy VMs for software testing whilst also doing various tasks on the host. I moved my VMs to my server (where they should have been anyway) and got on with the job, but I would say for most people 16GB RAM will be fine for 99.9% of their usage. At the time when 16GB becomes not enough, it might be time to do an OS clean up and figure out what things are holding back your system.... or you could just throw money at it like a good little consumer ;)
 
Man of Honour
Man of Honour
Joined
23 Dec 2002
Posts
10,006
Location
London
As already stated, it's all going to be dependent on what you run.
For the majority of users, I'd expect 16GB to be fine.

For myself, I run DCS, which on more complex multiplayer scenarios has very much ended up eating all of the 24GB of ram that I have in my PC, though being fair, I'm also running Oculus, teamspeak, SRS, voice attack, tacview and simshaker.
For my next PC (hopefully this year), I'm intending to buy a 32GB base unit and will ensure that it includes a motherboard capable of supporting 64GB.
 
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