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The idea that RAM requirements are going up so much all the time doesn’t seem to match reality if you ask me. The fact that I’m still getting by totally fine w

by audunw 3y ago

The idea that RAM requirements are going up so much all the time doesn’t seem to match reality if you ask me. The fact that I’m still getting by totally fine with an old 8GB on my old laptop is frankly speaking insane. It’s from 2015. Back in the 90s using an 8 year old machine for anything modern would have been unthinkable. OK, it can’t do the latest games or 8k video editing. There are some modern tasks it can’t do. But with everything else there’s no big difference with my newer machines. I can still get by with RAM that’s within an order of magnitude of my 2008 gaming computer. Even for games. Isn’t that crazy? With everything else the requirements (disk size and GPU transistors) have gone up like 2x orders of magnitude. There’s been some jumps in ram requirements over the years but often it has been for important things like browser sandboxing or HiDPI/retina displays. There is some validity to the frustration. The switch to MS teams at work was associated with a big jump in the RAM needed for a usable system. But I also get why.. the pace of development of MS teams has been extremely fast which would’ve been hard without electron. I don’t miss Skype for business. And now they’ve worked on a version that’s more optimised? If Teams is optimised I can get by with 8-16GB for a long time

ajsnigrutin 3y ago
Office 2000: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office_2000#System_requirements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office_2000#System_r... Memory: 16 MB (Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me) 32 MB (Windows NT 4.0 SP3, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008) Office 2021: https://microsoft.fandom.com/wiki/Microsoft_Office_2021 https://microsoft.fandom.com/wiki/Microsoft_Office_2021 > 4GB RAM So, an 128x increase of ram requirement (32->4096) in ~21 years. Do you actually get 128x more of anything? Does it do 128x more? I mean sure, the icons are high-res, so maybe a few 100kB of ram for that, but 128x more? Even the 2016 version required 2 gigs less... and the 'whats new'? https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/what-s-new-in-office-2021-43848c29-665d-4b1b-bc12-acd2bfb3910a https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/what-s-new-in-off... For some things, I agree... a jump form notepad.exe to word brings many new features and an increase in memory usage... but the new word versions keep growing and growing in size but the new feature set doesn't bring anything that would excuse such a large increase in usage. Yes, teams was broken, and it used less memory if you used it in a browser than a native app.. so there's no excuse for that, especially since the native app was mostly a browser in disguise. I mostly blame lazyness and overspeced developer computers for that... why optimize when you can be lazy if you have 128 gigs of ram? If we made developers use (for testing) 5 year old, mid-tier laptops bought that were available in supermarkets (so something your grandma bought in walmart on a sale 5 years ago), the world of memory usage would be a much nicer place. Same for mobile phones.. test the app on a 3 year mid-range phone, and if it's too slow, it's going to be too slow for many users. First result on walmart.com for a "laptop"? https://www.walmart.com/ip/SGIN-15-6inch-Laptop-4GB-DDR4-128GB-SSD-Windows-11-Laptop-Computer-with-Quad-Core-Intel-Celeron-up-to-2-8GHz-Full-HD-1920x1080-Laptops-Computer/1044996074?from=%2Fsearch https://www.walmart.com/ip/SGIN-15-6inch-Laptop-4GB-DDR4-128... quad core celeron with 4 gigs of ram. This is what my grandma would have bought. Barely enough for word today, probably not enough in a few years when a new version comes out.

by audunw 3y ago

ajsnigrutin 3y ago

Office 2000: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office_2000#System_requirements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office_2000#System_r... Memory: 16 MB (Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me) 32 MB (Windows NT 4.0 SP3, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008) Office 2021: https://microsoft.fandom.com/wiki/Microsoft_Office_2021 https://microsoft.fandom.com/wiki/Microsoft_Office_2021 > 4GB RAM So, an 128x increase of ram requirement (32->4096) in ~21 years. Do you actually get 128x more of anything? Does it do 128x more? I mean sure, the icons are high-res, so maybe a few 100kB of ram for that, but 128x more? Even the 2016 version required 2 gigs less... and the 'whats new'? https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/what-s-new-in-office-2021-43848c29-665d-4b1b-bc12-acd2bfb3910a https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/what-s-new-in-off... For some things, I agree... a jump form notepad.exe to word brings many new features and an increase in memory usage... but the new word versions keep growing and growing in size but the new feature set doesn't bring anything that would excuse such a large increase in usage. Yes, teams was broken, and it used less memory if you used it in a browser than a native app.. so there's no excuse for that, especially since the native app was mostly a browser in disguise. I mostly blame lazyness and overspeced developer computers for that... why optimize when you can be lazy if you have 128 gigs of ram? If we made developers use (for testing) 5 year old, mid-tier laptops bought that were available in supermarkets (so something your grandma bought in walmart on a sale 5 years ago), the world of memory usage would be a much nicer place. Same for mobile phones.. test the app on a 3 year mid-range phone, and if it's too slow, it's going to be too slow for many users. First result on walmart.com for a "laptop"? https://www.walmart.com/ip/SGIN-15-6inch-Laptop-4GB-DDR4-128GB-SSD-Windows-11-Laptop-Computer-with-Quad-Core-Intel-Celeron-up-to-2-8GHz-Full-HD-1920x1080-Laptops-Computer/1044996074?from=%2Fsearch https://www.walmart.com/ip/SGIN-15-6inch-Laptop-4GB-DDR4-128... quad core celeron with 4 gigs of ram. This is what my grandma would have bought. Barely enough for word today, probably not enough in a few years when a new version comes out.