Games need more RAM, but prices are abysmal. Unfortunate, I know. But before you empty your wallet for an upgrade, what if the answer is switching to the penguin side? I ran two identical test benches in real-world workloads to find out if ditching Windows is the only memory upgrade you actually need.
Does Linux use less RAM?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oIyk13JwQM
21 Comments
harcesz@szmer.info · 50 pts · 28d
tl;dw: yes
artyom@piefed.social · 13 pts · 28d
🤯
voytrekk@sopuli.xyz · 3 pts · 28d
I thought it was tl;dw for watch.
harcesz@szmer.info · 8 pts · 27d
It is, but only earlier in the night when my mind still grammars.
verdigris@lemmy.ml · 28 pts · 28d
Short answer: yes, a bit, but it's unlikely to make the difference if you already need a graphical environment to run games.
Die4Ever@retrolemmy.com · 8 pts · 27d
maybe, this video tested with 8GB and there was a difference
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJEo6Kb6Rhg
but idk how trustworthy that channel is
similarly they did a test with 4GB of VRAM and some games did better on Linux than on Windows
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22Y9MI_g-0U
especially in 1% lows
verdigris@lemmy.ml · 9 pts · 27d
Yeah it's enough to make an appreciable difference in the right circumstances, but it's not going to miraculously take a rig from struggling to run a certain game to working smoothly.
SapphironZA@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 27d
Its actually made quite the diffrence because windows 11 uses 18GB of Ram to run BG3, where Linux Mint was able to do the same with only 12GB.
If you only have 16GB of RAM, this avoids having to upgrade your RAM.
bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de · 25 pts · 27d
Just watched the vjdeo. It is absolute garbage. Their systems both had 32 GB of RAM and neither got anywhere near that. No mention of how they measured it so it is quite possible that they were counting file descriptors on Windows but not on Linux or vice versa.
Sure, Windows was using almost twice as much RAM as Linux. But as long as you have the RAM, who cares? The real struggle begins when you need as much as possible but they didn't show that at all. But they only got up to 17 GB on Windows and 11 GB on Linux. With 32 GB available on both.
I'd love Gamer's Nexus to do a similar video with actually robust and comparable testing methodology.
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 17 pts · 27d
It's LTT. YouTube's Sharper Image catalog. No one takes them seriously.
jerkface@lemmy.ca · 13 pts · 27d
It's 2026 and NOBODY HAS THE RAM
yaroto98@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 27d
Unused RAM is wasted RAM. So long as it's properly managed.
grue@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 27d
In other words, if the systems had 16GB instead, it might've made a huge difference. Too bad they didn't pull a stick from each system and check again.
eco_game@discuss.tchncs.de · 6 pts · 27d
Yes I was waiting for 16 and then 8 GB comparisons. Comparing RAM usage without needing 100 % of it is useless, because as others have said, unused RAM is wasted RAM.
Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 27d
I didn't understand why they tested it with 16gb ram instead. Like when the video ended I thought my video stuck but nope they just stopped with no proper details nothing. Is this LTT now?
warmaster@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 28d
We already know, sure. That video is for the ones that don't. Which are the vast majority of Windows users out there.
GustavoM@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 28d
I'm typing this on a minimal installation, and the ram usage is exactly at 1.4Gb. There's only brave + a lousy terminal running on the background. (Browser ram usage should be around the 1.2Gb mark btw.)
Arcane2077@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 27d
This video reminded me of the Expedition 33 issue. How to make it run good on steam deck/machine?
bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de · 2 pts · 27d
There are simple mods on Nexusmods to disable or dial down graphical effects. Can't remember what the one is called that I used, but it had a profile explicitly for the Steam Deck and it helped a lot.
This is the case for most UE5 games. They all have mods to tweak the graphics up or down beyond what the developers let you control. No idea why they don't use those settings.
Arcane2077@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 27d
That helps, but it still feels unnecessarily choppy even with high framerates. Could be a quirk in UE games running via Proton, don’t have any other UE5 games to test though
OR3X@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 17d
Linus can take his tips and stick them up his ass. So sick of this dude pretending to be an expert.