A subject that I find interesting: because the “Fattening of the modern web” was what principally drove me to requiring more system memory. I found that one of my machines would constantly thrash shortly after a web browser entered the picture; didn’t matter if it was Firefox, Chrome, or Opera (which was truly different back then).  I think that machine has 5 GB installed because the 3 GB I had enough parts to reach just couldn’t cut it, so I had to buy a 2 GB stick for the fourth slot. Once I got past the third gigabyte the thrashing went away, and performance remained stable while having a browser open.

Today my main PCs have 12 and 16 GB of memory installed l and I envision their successor as needing 16 GB base with provisions to be upgraded to at least 32 GB. Because I strongly question if anything less will last another 5-10 years.

Why have I arrived at this? Because modern computing uses lots of memory. I’ve owned computers with less memory than some web pages require in file sizes never mind the amount of memory to render them in a contemporary manor. The rise of container and virtualization technologies adds to this, not just the hailstorm of things like JavaScriot, style sheets, and images all over.

For many years now: I’ve viewed 4 GB as adequate for tasks like Chromebooks, and general productivity. But that time is coming to pass us by as software continues to gobble bytes like candy.

On my 12 GB system: often enough the memory utilization hovers too close to half for me to view 4 GB as comfortable anymore. The machine’s main purpose being Direct 3D games, I’m less concerned because while games are active they will be the main focus for resource allocation.

On my 16 GB system where buffer caching and containers typically consume any memory I’m not throwing directly at development tasks, I’ve often felt the desire for double the memory capacity. Because of how often I find myself thinking: nest not try building two of these projects at once 😅.

For the most part I think we’re headed for another leap in memory. In the sense of how we went from diddly squat to over ten megs, and how we transitioned from tend to hundreds of megs of system memory. He’ll, I remember when a shit ton of memory was still measured in kilobytes….