Does Linux use less RAM?

[00:02] guidelines saying that while 16 gigs of RAM is okay for gaming on Windows 11, what you really want is 32 gigs for the no worries experience. Well, given the current climate, the

[00:16] backlash was as swift as it was predictable. And the Windows Learning Center article has since been pulled. But, that doesn't make what Microsoft But, that doesn't make what Microsoft said any less true. With modern games

[00:29] recommending [music] or even requiring anywhere from 8 to 16 gigs of system memory, not to mention that background applications like your browser, Discord, or OBS are going to be sucking back even more. System memory

[00:42] usage feels like it's gotten completely out of control. Many gamers blame Microsoft for packing their operating system full of ads, AI, and other unnecessary bloat. And that might be true.

[00:55] But, pointing fingers isn't going to solve the problem for us gamers. So, what can we do about it? How about switching to Linux? Everyone already knows that it runs better on low-end hardware. The only question is,

[01:08] can its spendthrift approach to RAM consumption also help in demanding applications like the latest games and web [music] browsers? To find out, we built two identical systems and we're going to put them through the paces to

[01:21] see if a penguin can help you do more with less in these trying times. Now, I'm going to do more segue to our sponsor, DeleteMe. With data brokers legally buying and selling some of your most personal information online, you

[01:35] need a way to intervene. Learn more with our link down below or at the end of our link down below or at the end of this video.

[01:51] most scientific test we've ever done. But, is your life scientific when you're also chatting with your friends? I didn't think so. And we did cover off the basics. Both of our systems are running fresh installs other than this

[02:06] Both are running the latest drivers and patches for Windows 11 and Linux Mint respectively. And as for our choice of Mint, well, we went with it for its reputation for low resource usage, user-friendliness, and stability.

[02:20] would prevent you from using some other flavor of Linux if you prefer. Anything that can be logged into is logged into and both systems have been left idle at the desktop for a couple of hours before we started filming.

[02:34] As you may have already noticed by the way, we will have our real-time RAM way, we will have our real-time RAM usage visible on the screen, which um baseline for Linux is literally half of what it is for Windows.

[02:51] Oh, Microsoft. With that said, I do suspect that Mint's advantage is not going to get much wider. [music] See, if we're running the same software on both systems, the usage of that software should be the same even if the

[03:06] underlying operating system is hogging less in the background. If anything, I do wonder if maybe Windows by running less translation while we're gaming may be able to save on some overhead compared to Linux Mint.

[03:20] It is also possible though that the operating systems will simply manage ways and we will end up surprised. To kick things off, I've got my lovely helper. >> Hello.

[03:33] >> And we're going to start with some light browsing of the interwebs. Maybe lttstore.com? Well, I did say light web browsing, didn't I? So, Firefox. >> 3 2 1 go. >> So far, it looks, you know,

[03:47] pretty corresponding. Net Noods? It's not naked. It's like noodles. Okay, 3 2 Yours is >> Woo! >> almost double. [laughter] >> I'm also more-er.

[04:00] but now I'm almost five. I'm 4.9 gigs more than We We haven't done anything. What's a pretty demanding site? >> Twitch, yeah. >> Yeah, okay. 3 2 1. Go.

[04:17] Holy crap. [music] I'm up to almost 5 gigs more. Maybe this is a Firefox thing. Let's fire up Chrome. 3 2 1 a Chrome. Look [laughter] at Look at it go.

[04:32] This has nothing on it. And it's like boop boop. Chrome has a cool feature where you can hover over the tab and see exactly how much RAM that tab is using. >> 415 megabytes for me. 500

[04:46] >> What? >> What the heck? >> Okay. >> Let's close everything else. And let's fire up Discord and start chatting and see how that impacts our RAM usage.

[04:58] >> Start chatting. >> And start scrolling. I got to admit, this is not what we were expecting. Chrome and Discord are both web apps. So, [music] the developers are not interfacing with the hardware

[05:13] directly, and that's by design. The point of a web app is that you write the code once, and then it runs everywhere. Mobile, desktop, the anything that has a browser. The trade-off of them is that they don't run the best

[05:26] Okay. I think it's time for us to do something a little heavier. In terms of RAM USAGE. THAT DAMN IT. DUDE. I'm losing her again.

[05:39] We're We're just on the title screen. >> It's actually kind of crazy how little it goes up on Linux. >> A lot of the time when we do these sorts of live experiments, I have at least a pretty good idea from all my years of

[05:52] be. Even if I had anticipated that Windows was going to be worse, I would not have thought that it would be this much thought that it would be this much worse. I'm up to 5.4 gigs more than you.

[06:06] worse. I'm up to 5.4 gigs more than you. I've only opened one tab, Discord. And the Slay the Spire. Way more demanding. >> No.

[06:19] I'm going to keep striking. >> Okay. Well, how >> Okay, this is not making any difference anyway. demanding. Once [music] again, this is more of a difference than we were

[06:31] expecting. While C# automatically handles garbage collection, that is the way that memory is managed, making it theoretically more OS agnostic. Most modern C# game engines are built to run natively on Linux,

[06:45] which means that most C# titles can handle all that garbage the Linux way, which seems to work better on Linux, I guess. now. It's [music] me. >> 18.6

[06:59] versus 8.4. You've got to be kidding me. I'm not even rendering anything yet. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? >> Dude, it's I'm up to 6 and 1/2 more.

[07:11] >> Dude, I'm still climbing. >> even rendering >> I'm not even rendering yet. I'm going to look up how much 7 gigs of DDR5 costs right now. Okay, in monetary terms, I'm using $45

[07:24] using $45 more RAM than you, which yeah, is a lot, but then also is like dinner for two with soft drinks. But here's the problem with that. If I just need one more gig of memory,

[07:37] If I just need one more gig of memory, you know, I can't just pay $6.50. gigs of RAM. And if I'm going to buy more, I'm going to be jumping to 24, or

[07:50] I'm going to be jumping to 32. So, that's another big chunk of change that I'm going to have to put down if I run into situations where I'm using >> into the game now. >> We've been in pre-rendered cutscenes up

[08:04] >> We're about to load into the game. >> I wouldn't be surprised if we crack 16 in actual game. Wow. In-game is less demanding both in terms of absolutes on Oh, wait. No.

[08:17] >> Mine Yeah, mine didn't go down. >> Yours went up. I'm now only 6 gigs more than you. This is a game that runs natively on Linux, so we shouldn't be dealing with any extra overhead for Proton, but for some reason

[08:29] running the in-game cinematic spiked my memory usage, but rendering the actual game is fine. If I had to guess, all I can really come If I had to guess, all I can really come up with is that while Radeon drivers are

[08:43] a a bright point on Linux compared to Nvidia, the only thing I can come up with right now is that the Radeon game drivers are now is that the Radeon game drivers are somehow more efficient on Linux.

[08:56] I can't think what else would be using anything. >> We haven't seen anything to give us evidence that the game itself would use less so far, because every application has used more. It's clear that while the

[09:08] open source community has done a good job with Radeon drivers on Linux, AMD themselves puts more effort into Windows. Maybe this is a one-off though. Let's try another game. This is interesting. Baldur's Gate turns out was

[09:20] interesting. Baldur's Gate turns out was using more RAM on Windows, but we kind of didn't notice it as much because somehow our background usage got a little bit closer. It's more like back to 4 and 1/2 gigs

[09:34] difference. Not sure how that happened. This is the one situation that I'm still holding out some hope for my former champ gone to seed here, Windows. Woah, I jumped.

[09:48] This is something that now I want to learn about. Why does watching in-game cinematics use so much RAM on Windows? That's like I'm ending up with more questions than answers, you guys. Here I was expecting

[10:00] Windows to finally manage at least a smaller loss. And instead, this ends up being the first game where we actually exceed what would have comfortably run on our 16 gigs of RAM if we only had 16 gigs. Come on, man. Even

[10:17] think the biggest [music] delta we've seen. though. But your bumps are so much smaller than >> Yeah. And they're so brief, the bumps,

[10:30] [snorts] like my bumps. Your bumps are gross. >> thing to say to somebody. I mean, I'm declining. I'm declining. >> Yeah, see? Nope. Doing pretty good. Doing pretty good here. Okay, let's move

[10:42] >> Actually, yours is way smoother. >> Yeah, I might be using 60% more RAM than you, but uh I think I'm getting a more than 60% better experience at the moment. >> This is a miserable experience.

[10:56] This feels awful. >> To be clear, this game can run well on It would require a bit more troubleshooting than what we're doing >> But if all you care about is RAM usage, then Linux is the way to go.

[11:11] It's very helpful. [laughter] Something we haven't addressed this whole time is what exactly the operating systems are doing with their RAM. macOS, for instance, uses a lot of RAM, but it also aggressively caches things that

[11:25] [music] the user might want in the background. So, we can't actually say for sure that oh, yeah, Windows is wasting the RAM. But what we can say is Windows will use more RAM across basically

[11:39] well, any workload we use today. So, general browsing and computer usage, communications, and gaming. Whether this is enough to push you to an alternative operating system though, is a question that only you can answer.

[11:52] And I think our test today illustrated some great reasons both for and against. Obviously, the lighter resource usage is a huge plus in my personal experience using Linux as my daily driver for the last

[12:06] with the Steam Machine has been pretty great. But, you might have noticed we didn't even test software like Adobe Premiere it just really isn't supported on Linux. And even in applications that do

[12:21] into you know, some weird stuff sometimes troubleshooting. Let us know in the comments if you guys are ready to make the switch. And let us know in the comments if you didn't see this coming.

[12:34] to our sponsor. >> DeleteMe. I got a newsflash for you, bucko. Your data is out there in the wild waiting to be scooped up by data brokers who care more about coin than your security. Oh,

[12:47] but Elijah, surely that must be totally illegal. Nope, it's not. You and your relatives names, numbers, addresses, you name it, are being sold to anyone with a credit card, only putting you at risk of things like fishing scams or identity

[13:01] subscription service that removes your personal information from hundreds of data brokers and people search sites. They've been in the game for about 15 years and don't outsource to any third parties, so your data stays safe. Unlike

[13:14] other services, DeleteMe even verifies your data is on a data broker site before submitting removal requests, reducing the risk of unnecessary exposure. So, you can get 20% off DeleteMe consumer plans when you go to

[13:27] join deleteme.com/ltt20 and use code ltt20 at checkout or you can use the QR code on the screen. >> If you guys enjoyed this video and you just love weird RAM experiments, how about the recent video we did where we

[13:39] took a system with 1.5 terabytes of memory and then found out how many Chrome tabs we could open both on Windows and on Linux.