9 ms·

I think it's just RAM reaching the comfortable level, like other things did. Back when I had a 386 DX 40 MHz with 4MB RAM and 170MB disk, everything was at a p

I think it's just RAM reaching the comfortable level, like other things did. Back when I had a 386 DX 40 MHz with 4MB RAM and 170MB disk, everything was at a premium. Drawing a game at a decent framerate at 320x200 required careful coding. RAM was always scarce. That disk space ran out in no time at all, and even faster one CD drives showed up. I remember spending an inordinate time on squeezing out more disk space, and using stuff like DoubleSpace to make more room. Today I've got a 2TB SSD and that's plenty. Once in a while I notice I've got 500GB worth of builds lying around, do some cleaning, and problem solved for the next 6 months. I could get more storage but it'd be superfluous, it'd just allow for accumulating more junk before I need a cleaning. RAM is similar, at some point it ceases to be constraining. 16GB is an okay amount to have unless you run virtual machines, or compile large projects using 32 cores at once (had to upgrade to 64GB for that).

seiferteric 4y ago
For most users that is true. I think there were several applications that drove the demand for more memory, then the 32bit -> 64bit transition drove it further but now for most users 16GB is plenty.
- drdaeman 4y ago
  16 GB RAM is above average. I've just opened BestBuy (US, WA, and I'm not logged in so it picked some store in Seattle - YMMV), went to the "All Laptops" section (no filters of any kind) and here's what I get on the first page: 16, 8, 12, 8, 12, 4, 4, 4, 4, 8, 8, 8, 8, 16, 16, 4, 4, 8. Median value is obviously 8 and mean/average is 8.4. I'd say that's about enough to comfortably use a browser with a few tabs on an otherwise pristine machine with nothing unusual running in background (and I'm not sure about memory requirements of all the typically prenistalled crapware). Start opening more tabs or install some apps and 8GB RAM is going to run out real quick. And it goes as low as 4 - which is a bad joke. That's appropriate only for quite special low-memory uses (like a thin client, preferably based on a special low-resource GNU/Linux distro) or "I'll install my own RAM anyway so I don't care what comes stock" scenario.
  - kayodelycaon 4y ago
    Low end chromebooks have 4gb, but they pretty much count as thin clients. :)
  - account42 4y ago
    I agree that 4 GiB is too low for browsers these days (and has been for years) but but that is only because the web is so bloated. But 4 GiB would also be a waste on any kind of thin client. Plenty of local applications should run fine on that with the appropriate OS.
inciampati 4y ago
16G is just enough that I only get two or three OOM kills a day. So, it's pathetically low for my usage, but I can't upgrade because it's all soldered on now! 64G or 128G seems like it would be enough to not run into problems.
- wardedVibe 4y ago
  As someone on a desktop with 64GB, firefox still manages to slowly rise in usage up to around 40% of RAM, occasionally causing oom issues.
  - radlad 4y ago
    I wonder if you have a runaway extension... I haven't seen this type of issue from Firefox in a while.
  - mixmastamyk 4y ago
    FF using 1GB here, after several hours. You must have a leak somewhere.
    - detaro 4y ago
      How many windows/tabs is a much more relevant question in my experience.
      - kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
        FF doesn't load old tabs so you can't just count them if they've been carried over since a restart.
        detaro 4y ago
        true, active tabs matters, but people that have hundreds of tabs open but only rarely open new ones or touch old ones are probably also quite rare.
Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
> Drawing a game at a decent framerate at 320x200 required careful coding. 320x200 is 64,000 pixels. If you want to maintain 20 fps, then you have to render 1,280,000 pixels per second. At 40 Mhz, that's 31.25 clock cycles per pixel. And the IPC of a 386 was pretty awful. That's also not including any CPU time for game logic.
- anthk 4y ago
  Hint: you don't replace all pixels at once.
  - int_19h 4y ago
    Most PC games of the VGA DOS era did exactly that, though. But, well, a lot can be done in 30 cycles. If it's a 2D game, then you're mostly blitting sprites. If there's no need for translucency, each row can be reduced to a memcpy (i.e. probably REP MOVSD). Something like Doom had to do a lot more tricks to be fast enough. Though even then it still repainted all the pixels.
    - adolph 4y ago
      You might enjoy the Fridman interview of Carmack. He talks about that era’s repaint strategies.
colechristensen 4y ago
I think it's really quite the opposite. Compute resource consumption is like a gas, it expands to fill whatever container you give it. Things didn't reach a comfortable level, Moore's Law just slowed down a lot so bloat slowed at pace. When developers can get a machine with twice as much resources every year and a half, things feel uncomfortable real quick for everybody else. When developer's can't ... things stop being so uncomfortable for everyone. However, there is a certain amount of physical reality that has capped needs. Audio and video have limits to perceptual differences; with a given codec (which are getting better as well) there is a maximum bitrate where a human will be able to experience an improvement. Lots of arguing about where exactly, but the limit exists and so the need for storage/compute/memory to handle media has a max and we've hit that.

seiferteric 4y ago

For most users that is true. I think there were several applications that drove the demand for more memory, then the 32bit -> 64bit transition drove it further but now for most users 16GB is plenty.

drdaeman 4y ago
16 GB RAM is above average. I've just opened BestBuy (US, WA, and I'm not logged in so it picked some store in Seattle - YMMV), went to the "All Laptops" section (no filters of any kind) and here's what I get on the first page: 16, 8, 12, 8, 12, 4, 4, 4, 4, 8, 8, 8, 8, 16, 16, 4, 4, 8. Median value is obviously 8 and mean/average is 8.4. I'd say that's about enough to comfortably use a browser with a few tabs on an otherwise pristine machine with nothing unusual running in background (and I'm not sure about memory requirements of all the typically prenistalled crapware). Start opening more tabs or install some apps and 8GB RAM is going to run out real quick. And it goes as low as 4 - which is a bad joke. That's appropriate only for quite special low-memory uses (like a thin client, preferably based on a special low-resource GNU/Linux distro) or "I'll install my own RAM anyway so I don't care what comes stock" scenario.
- kayodelycaon 4y ago
  Low end chromebooks have 4gb, but they pretty much count as thin clients. :)
- account42 4y ago
  I agree that 4 GiB is too low for browsers these days (and has been for years) but but that is only because the web is so bloated. But 4 GiB would also be a waste on any kind of thin client. Plenty of local applications should run fine on that with the appropriate OS.

inciampati 4y ago

16G is just enough that I only get two or three OOM kills a day. So, it's pathetically low for my usage, but I can't upgrade because it's all soldered on now! 64G or 128G seems like it would be enough to not run into problems.

wardedVibe 4y ago
As someone on a desktop with 64GB, firefox still manages to slowly rise in usage up to around 40% of RAM, occasionally causing oom issues.
- radlad 4y ago
  I wonder if you have a runaway extension... I haven't seen this type of issue from Firefox in a while.
- mixmastamyk 4y ago
  FF using 1GB here, after several hours. You must have a leak somewhere.
  - detaro 4y ago
    How many windows/tabs is a much more relevant question in my experience.
    - kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
      FF doesn't load old tabs so you can't just count them if they've been carried over since a restart.
      - detaro 4y ago
        true, active tabs matters, but people that have hundreds of tabs open but only rarely open new ones or touch old ones are probably also quite rare.

Sohcahtoa82 4y ago

> Drawing a game at a decent framerate at 320x200 required careful coding. 320x200 is 64,000 pixels. If you want to maintain 20 fps, then you have to render 1,280,000 pixels per second. At 40 Mhz, that's 31.25 clock cycles per pixel. And the IPC of a 386 was pretty awful. That's also not including any CPU time for game logic.

anthk 4y ago
Hint: you don't replace all pixels at once.
- int_19h 4y ago
  Most PC games of the VGA DOS era did exactly that, though. But, well, a lot can be done in 30 cycles. If it's a 2D game, then you're mostly blitting sprites. If there's no need for translucency, each row can be reduced to a memcpy (i.e. probably REP MOVSD). Something like Doom had to do a lot more tricks to be fast enough. Though even then it still repainted all the pixels.
  - adolph 4y ago
    You might enjoy the Fridman interview of Carmack. He talks about that era’s repaint strategies.

colechristensen 4y ago

I think it's really quite the opposite. Compute resource consumption is like a gas, it expands to fill whatever container you give it. Things didn't reach a comfortable level, Moore's Law just slowed down a lot so bloat slowed at pace. When developers can get a machine with twice as much resources every year and a half, things feel uncomfortable real quick for everybody else. When developer's can't ... things stop being so uncomfortable for everyone. However, there is a certain amount of physical reality that has capped needs. Audio and video have limits to perceptual differences; with a given codec (which are getting better as well) there is a maximum bitrate where a human will be able to experience an improvement. Lots of arguing about where exactly, but the limit exists and so the need for storage/compute/memory to handle media has a max and we've hit that.