this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2024
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Ah, I didn't expect it to be actually used RAM. Maybe this is a Linux issue with the Steam build then? Here is my Windows 11 task manager, Steam just downloaded 10 different game updates (so did plenty of work) and is now idle:
In total 516.5 MB RAM on a machine with 32 GB (22 GB free at the moment), if there was any pressure on RAM usage it would probably go down further.
Either way, since upgrading to 32 GB RAM nearly a decade ago I haven't had a single issue with RAM usage (While with 16 GB I actually had games in the past where I ran out of memory). So it's no big deal as far as I'm concerned and if I'd actually run any applications that needs tons of RAM I'd quickly upgrade to 64 GB and be done with it.
The only way this would be annoying is on low-end machines, like 4 or 8 GB RAM in total, but those have plenty of issues anyway in regards to games (otherwise why would you install Steam?). On a high-end machine complaining about 1 GB of RAM is a waste of time in my opinion, there are a ton of better topics you can rage at.
it could very well be a linux build issue, it wouldn't surprise me honestly. The main telling thing for me though is that heroic uses the same if not more ram, and is actually many times more performant.
My main problem with the ram usage is that steam takes equally as long to launch as it does to boot a game, which is super annoying, not including any updates it hasnt performed yet. Heroic launches faster than my web browser does, even though its literally an electron app.
I wouldnt really care how much ram it used if i could just close it when i was done with it, and have it go away, but it's such a mess that's not really feasible.
The whole "just buy more ram" is not really a solution im a fan of. My system has 16GB. which is fine most of the time, it gets stretched sometimes, most of that ram is used by browsers, (because three different containerized browsers run simultaneously for some reason) so my idle ram quickly becomes 8GB. 8GB is still a lot of available ram though, if steam didn't use an additional gig on top of that it would only be beneficial. Maybe i'm just too jaded in general. But saying just get more ram is kind of like saying "just repair a cracked back glass on a phone" When i never wanted to have a piece of glass on the back of my phone which could get broken in the first place.
Although to preface this, i AM a linux user, and i can routinely enjoy a machine with 4GB of ram through the magic of non shit software. i3 + debian cooks. Idle ram usage under 100M is trivial when you aren't running any bloat. In fact, my server actually on average, uses less ram than my workstation. It's probably sitting at like 4GB util right now, running a handful of services, and a handful of game servers.