I'm an old gamer who started tinkering with PC gaming in 1998. At that time, the PC I owned only had 32MB of RAM. It was fast enough for "modem" games like Doom, Quake, Command and Conquer Red Alert 2 and Commandos. Almost three decades have passed and now an official Microsoft document recommends 32GB of RAM for a smooth and future-proof Windows 11 gaming experience.
The document was published late last week but was later deleted. It also states that 16GB of RAM is now a practical starting memory amount. Unlike a few years ago where 8GB of RAM was considered the starting specification.
These guidelines are only in keeping with the times because video games on PC now require applications like Discord, chat and streaming like Twitch to run in the background. At the same time, AAA games take up a large amount of memory for high-quality graphics.
In an era where memory is increasingly expensive and difficult to buy, 32GB is a size that is large enough to burden PC game enthusiasts. But this is what you have to pay for technological advancements. A few years ago Windows 11 made it mandatory to use SSDs as storage, which was also criticized, but it is now the norm that is no longer debated.
