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exerceo
1y

How did mid-2000s computer users get along with just 1 GB of RAM or less?

As of today, anything less than 8 GB of RAM seems impractical. A handful of tabs in a web browser and file manager can quickly fill that up.

Shortly after booting, 2 GB of RAM are already eaten up on today's operating systems.

When I occasionally used an older laptop computer with 6 GB of RAM (because it has more ports and better repairability than today's laptops; before upgrading the memory), most of the time over 5 GB were in use, and that did not even include disk caching.

It appears that today's web browsers are far more memory-intensive than 2000s web browsers, even if we do similar things people did in the 2000s: browsing text-based pages with some photos here and there, watching videos, messaging and mailing, forum posting, and perhaps gaming. Tabbed browsing already was a thing in the 2000s. Microsoft added tabs to their pre-installed browser in 2006, back when an average personal computer had 1 GB of RAM, and an average laptop 512 MB!

Perhaps a difference is that people today watch in 720p or 1080p whereas in the 2000s, people typically watched at 240p, 360p, or 480p, but that still does not explain this massive difference. (Also, I pick a low resolution anyway when mostly listening to a video in background.)

One could create a swap file to extend system memory, though that is not healthy for an SSD in the long term. On computers, RAM is king.

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ram

web browsing

system memory
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  • 5
    1y
    Thanks to js.
  • 2
    1y
    My 2 cents here is that stuff evolve (not always good)

    But you say 'people today watch in 720p or 1080p'... That was true like 7 years ago.

    More and more are watching at 2k or more.

    More ram usage can be a good thing too. If it is available, why not use it ?

    Webpages are also for more complex than just html and css. Now the browser must take care of all the javascript, all the react and other fancy bling bling.
  • 8
    1y
    Beaten to it.

    Websites aren't just text and images with maybe a bit of Dom manipulation anymore.

    It's that, and tons of trackers, ads, fetches, connections, websockets, modules, and what have you.

    Hell, even fucking crypto mining if you get infected with certain extensions...
  • 2
    1y
    Websites become more bloated every day. All that crap in the background, from trackers to ads eat up a lot of resources. Keep several tabs open and you have that crap running constantly. Add the spyware from a proprietary browser and OS and your memory will be gobbled up
  • 2
    1y
    Meanwhile on my laptop: only Edge with a few tabs is open -> 9 of 16 GB of RAM in use 😒
  • 1
    1y
    CHROME
  • 3
    1y
    Many here have a kind of single perspective here - focussing on "content" displayed.

    Most browser nowadays are close to an Mini OS.

    You do not get all the gimmicks when you don't change the whole paradigma of what an browser engine is.

    As one example:

    https://chromium.org/developers/...

    Thats just GPU acceleration.

    Not talking about the diverse and broad set of additional stuff, like the JS compiler, CSS rendering optimizations, Prefetching, Pipelining, Plugins, allowing local device access for e.g. WebGL, ...

    A browser really is a Mini OS.

    Yes, it can display simple text html.

    But it isn't designed to do simple text html - the design is for the majority of pages, with bling bling. Hence the resource usage will always be excessive, no matter what content displayed.

    Given WebGL, security issues, etcc - another reason why resource usage is higher is the necessity for sandboxing, isolation of processes etc.

    That wasn't common few years ago.

    I could go on for a longer list, but point should be obvious: A browsers design nowadays is nothing like a browser 20 years ago.

    Stop comparing this, as it is an entirely different thing.
  • 1
    1y
    Hey I don't know if you remember but computers back then we're FUCKING slow.

    Sure, the hardware can be crazy nowadays, but even a cheap laptop is fast.

    Back then, shit was AWFUL. Glad we're out of that era.
  • 0
    303d
    @Nanos Luckily, you have upgradable memory slots.

    Nowadays, more and more computers have soldered RAM. Another thing that needs to be outlawed.
  • 0
    303d
    @exerceo

    Only shit "brands" do that.

    Buy and build your PC from components and problem solved.
  • 0
    300d
    @CoreFusionX And what about laptops? Can they be custom-built too?
  • 0
    300d
    @exerceo

    Admittedly, that's harder. However, so far I haven't had any trouble with my MSI laptops when I wanted to disassemble or upgrade them.
  • 0
    299d
    @CoreFusionX From what year is your MSi laptop? 2014?

    That was before MSi became cucked. That was when their gaming line-up had six USB ports. Today's laptops waste most of the space on the side for a useless "minimalist look" that no one asked for.
  • 1
    299d
    @exerceo

    2018. Mine is gaming compact (meaning real GPU but somewhat slimmer than the powerhouses) and it carries 3 USB a ports and 1 USB c. Didn't really ever need more, and if that was the case I have a hub anyway.
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