From our other sites
The story
Soaring semiconductor demand from the AI boom has driven up memory prices, and PC makers are moving back toward 8GB configurations. Windows has long operated on the assumption that “more memory is always better,” bloating with each release — but Microsoft is reportedly reversing course and working to cut memory consumption, with some reports claiming actual reductions in memory usage in the recent Windows 11 26H2 update. On 5ch, reactions were split: sarcastic comments like “should’ve done this from the start,” skepticism that this is just a cosmetic numbers improvement, and analysis pointing to heavyweight components like WebView2 as the real culprit behind memory bloat.
What people said
An 8GB PC sounds rough.
Won't you hit the ceiling just running Chrome?
Should've done this from the start.
https://news.mynavi.jp/techplus/article/20261007-5083736/
^
Right after 26H2 dropped, tons of reports came in about reduced memory usage.
You guys should update to 26H2 ASAP.
> Steam dropping support and the security issues
That's a huge problem though.
You guys are just going to cause way more bugs than that.
26H2 runs great.
Compressing memory with some new algorithm and then getting blue screens sounds exactly like something that would happen.
Seriously this.
Don't need all that bloatware bundled in either.
They never did a real fix because rewriting the code was too much of a hassle.
It's not a technical skill issue — it got bloated because they leaned heavily on WebView2 to cut costs.
And now that they can actually do it, people are gonna ask why they didn't do it sooner.
Gas prices (i.e. memory) used to be cheap.
And if that causes a memory glut and prices crash, so what — you're one of the biggest companies in the world.
Protect your own foundation to protect your own Windows.
Apparently there's not even enough power for that to begin with.
You don't get rich doing stuff like that.
They got this big by pushing the risk onto someone else and keeping all the benefits for themselves.
They'll talk a big game but never actually fix it.
Of course they can't — with today's app scale and update frequency, there's no way to do native support for every environment like in the old days.
If anything, consoles that are built against optimized dedicated APIs are the real living fossils here.
Though even that's fading, since Xbox dropped its dedicated API starting with the Series X and unified on DirectX.
If Nintendo made a PC OS, it'd probably be amazing.
Why don't they do it?
Probably because they don't have the rights to.
You're not thinking this through — there are barriers.
Wait, did they actually raise the price?
I can already see the future: AI generates garbage code, it turns into a bug festival, and everyone's screaming in agony lol
Sounds like you don't understand the current state of Ace Combat 8 lol
There are crash reports, but it's not a spec issue.
Ace Combat 8 isn't demanding in terms of performance.
Minimum: RTX 2060 / RX 6600
Recommended: RTX 3070 / RX 6800
The requirements are actually on the lower side.
The crashes will probably get patched out.
Even the XSS (Xbox Series S) costs ¥100,000, so are they planning to sell this for something like ¥400,000?
SP3 wasn't really that different from 7, and 7 came after that anyway, didn't it?
Nice lie.
There's no way SP3 runs on 512MB either.
Once you actually start using it normally, it eats up about the same amount of memory as before.
Wait what? Task Manager shows it going down though.
With 8GB, it adapts to 8GB.
It's been swapping all along, so with an SSD it was basically fine anyway.
With 16GB it feels like usage has gone up compared to before.
Boot used to be 4.7GB, now it's +1GB.
Once you use Edge and Chrome together it goes over 10GB.
Chrome's the one hogging it.
Background and Key Points of Debate
The backdrop here is the surge in memory demand and DRAM price spikes driven by the AI boom that’s been ongoing since late 2025. This has forced PC makers to scale back the amount of memory they ship, and it’s chipping away at the design assumption Windows has relied on for years: that memory is abundant. Where opinions in the thread split was over whether this slimming-down actually reduces real-world memory usage, or whether it’s just releasing “unused” memory on the surface. Poster #89 voiced skepticism based on past experience, while poster #95 gave a positive assessment citing real-world measurements on both 8GB and 16GB systems. There’s also a point (poster #52) that dependence on heavyweight components like WebView2 and Teams is part of what’s driving memory consumption, though the responses alone don’t make clear whether this is a fundamental redesign or just a tweak. Some commenters bring up the history of Windows Vista slimming down into Windows 7, but that’s based on personal recollection, not any official figures.
*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry (Geha)) thread “Microsoft: “Memory’s too expensive, so going forward Windows will lighten up its RAM requirements! A new memory strategy!”“
Leave a Reply