Every Windows 11 system I’ve used with 8GB of RAM ran like total shit.
8GB is enough for Windows 11. Issues only arise if you open any applications while Windows is running.
It’s barely enough to RDP to another machine
Every Windows 11 system I’ve used
with 8GB of RAMran like total shit.FTFY
I bet if I tried Windows 11 with 128 GB, I would still think it runs like garbage.
Well how about 256gb?
It is tradition
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.
Don’t worry, they’re using AI now so that’ll fix the spaghetti code. /s
The IT press was saying a decade or so ago the Microsoft had lost control of its code base and it would bloat and run like slug. Looks like nothing has changed. Too late to fix it with all the AI tokens in the world.
Any software can be fixed, it just that amount of effort needed for that would be insane in case of windows, so at this point it’s easier to use ostrich algorithm
True. MS’s approach was not do anything for a long long time. Serves them right.
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.
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.
I recently went to a large electronics retailer here in Germany and was shocked to see that they’re still selling brand new Windows 11 Laptops with 4GB RAM. Idling at 85% RAM usage.
Not sure if they’re just getting rid of old stock but selling them with Windows 11 at all is kinda criminal.
Fine for what? My 8gb laptop was unusable on win11, swapping even at the empty desktop.
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.
It’s doesn’t actually use those 7GB when idling though, it just allocates it so it’s directly available if it needs it. It will free up ram from its allocated amount if other processes require ram.
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.
Fine for what? One web page in Firefox and the Calculator application?
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 have 8gb on my work laptop and I’m at 90% on idle
16GB isn’t even enough if you need anything at all alongside your outlook, teams and browser
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.
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.
They gave up after ram prices are too expensive.
If you want to get the most of your hardware, Windows 11 is not the way.
Absolute bullshit! That is not at all true, at least not until they bother to optimize their OS and software.
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.
