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Windows 11's built-in Weather app wastes more than 1 GB of RAM

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Re: Windows 11's built-in Weather app wastes more than 1 GB of RAM

#201

As time goes on, I become more and more convinced that OSes need some sort of OS level GC pool which all GCed languages play in rather than having the language runtime provide the GC. A major part of why these sort of simple applications are taking gbs of memory is because the GC wants to simply grow as much as it can to avoid pauses/jank. There might be 10% of the memory which is actually live in that 1gb. But becau…

> A major part of why these sort of simple applications are taking gbs of memory is because the GC wants to simply grow as much as it can to avoid pauses/jank. There might be 10% of the memory which is actually live in that 1gb. But because it allocates fast enough, the extra headroom is needed. There’s very minimal state for a weather app. You should be able to sweep the whole thing pretty fast. You could probably s…

> There’s very minimal state for a weather app.

Except when it uses some kind of browser engine to render its UI?

Re: Windows 11's built-in Weather app wastes more than 1 GB of RAM

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has strong "How much could a banana cost? 10 dollars?" vibes. Back in my day 100MB was all you had for all your compute, and somehow programs still ran.

> Back in my day Back in my day systems used to be a lot simpler too. These “back in my mind” comparisons show a clear lack of understanding of the subject matter. 1996 apps are not the same as 2026 apps. Expectations are different. Design languages are different. Even the UX is entirely different. 1GB is clearly overkill, no question. But ~100MB to ~300MB is perfectly reasonable and you know it.

Yeah I wrote it a bit tongue in cheek, but even then I can't help but wondering where is all that memory needed.

My best guess is the GUI is somehow really heavy, wouldn't expect a simple console program that connects to some weather API to require that much RAM. But I never worked on apps like this, so no clear idea.

Re: Windows 11's built-in Weather app wastes more than 1 GB of RAM

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s an equivalent app to make a comparison with, one from an OS company. But yeah, I still remember when a weather app would take 10 MB and I was complaining (1999)

250 MB is exactly the sort of bloat you'd expect from this sort of daft web-browser-wrapper application, and Apple get it there. 1.2 GB, on the other hand, is 5x as much, and completely insane even when you start off with daft as your starting point.

Apple weather is fully native from what I understand. I suspect the 250MB comes from the video backgrounds they play. Arguably that would be a reasonable thing to sacrifice on low memory systems, you'd barely notice.

Re: Windows 11's built-in Weather app wastes more than 1 GB of RAM

#206
post #93
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Your designers want Sometimes, you need to tell the designers NO. Moving background images don't help people figure out what the weather is going to be.

Honestly if the image is of the current weather it kinda does. I don't mind e.g Apple's weather app design at all

You probably have a SVG renderer in memory already, and you already have a frame buffer and/or compositor buffer(s). Why should adding a graphical representation of the weather require more than a few KiB?

Re: Windows 11's built-in Weather app wastes more than 1 GB of RAM

#207
post #35

Please, Microsoft, PLEASE ! You can do BETTER ! Stop acting like an internship for every single feature you add ! Where's the money going ?

They can, but they won’t. Microsoft is run by the most cutthroat sycophants you could possibly imagine. That money you mentioned is going to those aforementioned sycophants and shareholders.

Re: Windows 11's built-in Weather app wastes more than 1 GB of RAM

#209

After seeing https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49226923 show up here, I'm now hoping someone will vibe-code a nearly identical-looking native app that takes a few orders of magnitude less RAM. Personally I just use my government's website when I need to check the forecast.

I’ve used Wego [0] for roughly a decade. It’s been good enough for me.

Six years in, I had to edit the configuration file once (to switch weather backends because the default backend shut down). In January, it’ll be 10 years.

[0]: https://github.com/schachmat/wego

Re: Windows 11's built-in Weather app wastes more than 1 GB of RAM

#210
post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's not ignore the new "windows copilot laptops" that come with 4GiB. https://en.gamegpu.com/news/zhelezo/defitsit-pamyati-zastavi...

Insanity. 4GB was often not enough even back in late Windows 7 era.

4GB is completely fine in Windows 7.
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