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The story
On October 15, Microsoft announced improvements to Windows 11’s memory management and responsiveness. On PCs with 8GB of RAM, the OS can now keep up to 2GB more data resident in memory that previously would have been swapped out to slower storage. The 5ch thread drew a wide range of reactions — nostalgic stories about how an 8GB (or even a 1MB) memory upgrade used to be treated like owning a “super PC,” complaints about today’s soaring RAM prices, and pointed remarks that the Weather app alone eats up 15-20% of total memory. Opinions split between those arguing Windows should simply be designed to use less memory in the first place, and those praising the move given how expensive hardware has become.
Windows 11 Runs Smoothly Even on 8GB PCs — Microsoft Announces Improvements – CNET Japan
CNET Japan Staff, October 16, 2026, 8:30 AM
On October 15, Microsoft announced that it has improved memory management and responsiveness in Windows 11. On PCs with 8GB of memory, the company says it can now keep up to 2GB more data in memory that previously had to be offloaded to slower storage.
Source: blogs.windows.com / Original article here
What people said
looks like full-size ("A4") notebooks are increasingly moving to onboard (soldered) memory.
How's that gonna work out? Is it actually going to get cheaper?
And in the end they'll probably just ignore it completely, as usual.
There was a time when 8MB was enough to brag about…
People used to say "what are you even gonna use that for, lol"…
Back then "memory" meant 640K, and adding an 8MB upgrade was enough to show off.
Upgrading an FM-TOWNS (a classic Japanese PC) by 1MB of memory cost ¥100,000 back then.
Office (the suite) has gotten stupidly heavy, lol
You've totally fallen for it.
It's "PC-98"
Not "PC98"
Google it yourself, dumbass.
Step two: ditch the features nobody needs.
Stuff like Widgets is seriously unnecessary.
It's like how your taxes and social insurance payments rise faster than your paycheck does.
This part sounds sketchy:
"On PCs with 8GB of memory, the Weather app alone is responsible for using up roughly 15-20% of total memory."
Up until last spring, 16GB of DDR4-3200 cost under ¥4,000, you know?
Of course they design software assuming you'll just slap in tons of RAM.
For reference, it's over ¥20,000 now.
That feature existed forever, why the hell did you remove it just to mess with us?
Re: #88
You can go vertical now, right?
Is 16GB actually enough for you?
Isn't that the bare minimum these days?
Most people already know that (100% of people who build their own PCs do).
The real problem right now is the price of that memory —
Moore's Law isn't doing anything here, and the same product has gotten 2-3x more expensive in a single year. That's just insane.
I've got DDR5 32GB (16GB dual channel) —
bought the memory for under ¥70,000, but I barely even use that PC, lol
For now, DDR4 16GB (8GB dual channel) is plenty.
Wait, seriously?
I really need it to go vertical, so that's great news.
If they don't change it, PCs themselves stop selling.
They should just ban onboard (soldered) memory.
Who's that even good for?
Then again, there's also the whole "ship it full of bugs now, fix it later" approach.
It's "bug," not "baku" (a pun on the dream-eating spirit from folklore).
Thanks. The whole point of building your own PC is gone now —
current memory prices are too scary to even touch, lol
There's no such thing as cheap water cooling —
building it yourself is the only option.
They probably really aren't selling.
Memory, SSDs, and video cards
are still priced insanely high as ever,
but cases and coolers have gotten cheaper.
Still, even pre-built PCs are expensive these days.
Background and Key Points of This Topic
This change reworks how Windows 11 manages memory — it doesn’t actually add physical RAM. On 8GB machines, it’s a mechanism that lets up to 2GB of data that used to be pushed out to slow storage stay in fast memory instead. The thread pointed out that “the Weather app alone eats up 15-20% of total memory,” suggesting that bloat in Windows’ built-in apps is directly tied to how heavy the OS feels overall. Opinions split between critics who say Windows should have been built lightweight from the start, and those who praised the fix given that “16GB of DDR4 jumped from under ¥4,000 to over ¥20,000 in a single year” — welcoming a solution that doesn’t rely on buying more hardware. One point readers might get wrong: this improvement isn’t really “gaining 2GB of extra memory” — it’s a memory-efficiency measure that reshuffles how existing memory gets used.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (News Flash+) thread “Windows 11 Runs Smoothly Even on 8GB PCs — Microsoft Announces Improvements.”
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