this post was submitted on 05 May 2026
347 points (94.4% liked)

Technology

84397 readers
4263 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Microsoft has quietly retracted its own documentation that suggested 32GB RAM is the “no worries” upgrade for gaming, and 16GB RAM is the baseline. This support document was likely written using a large language model, and Windows Latest first spotted it before it was taken down. Microsoft also nuked a document that recommended Copilot+ PCs for gaming.

Microsoft has a “Learning Center” where it publishes guides and marketing articles to promote various Windows features, and these rank well in search results. It’s mostly used by Microsoft to push a narrative and also make it easier for users to make a choice when they search the web.

In the first week of April, Microsoft quietly published a support document titled “Gaming features: What the best Windows PC gaming systems have in common.”

At first, the document might appear to be about Windows 11’s gaming features, but it goes a step further and builds a narrative around the memory requirement.

In the support document, Microsoft clearly notes that:

“For most players, 16GB RAM is a practical starting point. Moving to 32GB RAM helps if you run Discord, browsers, or streaming tools alongside your games. That extra memory also gives newer titles more breathing room as memory demands continue to rise.” – Microsoft.

“16GB RAM is the baseline; 32GB is the ‘no worries’ upgrade,” the company concluded in the support document, which was first spotted by Windows Latest.

This was later picked up by other outlets and the gaming community, and it didn’t go well with gamers.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Auth@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Even on linux my non technical friend needed to go from 16 -> 32 because they were running out of mem playing monster hunter. So this just seems like good advice.

[–] Zagorath@quokk.au 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Yours is the second comment I've seen in this thread where someone suggesting 16 wasn't enough for gaming on Linux, despite multiple comments from Windows users with no issues on 16 or less.

I actually wonder if it could be that Linux ends up requiring more memory than Windows does. Not necessarily because of the OS itself, but that other applications being used are less optimised, plus maybe the Proton layer for gaming costs more than running the game on Windows.

[–] Auth@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

its probably just the type of games. 16 is fine for most games. My friend plays 100s of different games but only MH required more than 16. So 16 is fine but 32 is really the no worries amount. For me it was modded cities skyline that pushed me to get 32gb.

[–] cenzorrll@piefed.ca 1 points 1 day ago

When windows uses 6-8GB at idle, there's a lot of room there for Linux to catch up with helper programs.