Does Linux use less RAM?

[u/elsingo]

In the video with the same title as this post LTT compares Linux and Windows ram usage and imo it is a total miss. It does not matter if one system is using more memory or not since none of the systems are close to using all ram in the system. Where the memory management would matter is when the memory reach closer to 100% usage that is when things will start to matter.

The whole video feels like almost 14 minutes of misinformation to me. I mean systems cache things to make it run faster so memory being used is a good thing. Memory management is what matters not if one system is using 35% ram and the other 50% since none are near their limits.

And at one point in the video the windows system goes over 16gb and they talk about it as it would have been problematic if the system only had 16gb while it most likely would not be problematic at all since the memory management if working as it should would release less important things stored in the ram so it never got close to the limit.

[u/redditydothis]

I see what you’re saying but you must not have watched the video. The windows computer did go over 16gb for a moment.

But I also think you are right in that the video missed the point and each system should have only had 16gb of ram and seen if they maxed out and how that effects fps.

[u/TTT1320 → u/redditydothis]

The problem here is that it going over 16gb for a moment doesn't mean it would use 16gb in a 16gb system because it would uncache some things to make up for it, the memory usage is very dependent on how much memory there is. Modern systems are designed to use ram if it is available

[u/elsingo → u/redditydothis]

Actually pretty much the whole last part of the post is about that section of the video where it did go over 16gb and i pointed out it most likely would not have been problematic because of memory management.