The RAM shortage comes for us all • Hacker News Board

Re: The RAM shortage comes for us all

#331

Post by Narishma » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 11:30 PM UTC

baal80spam wrote: post #207

aynyc wrote: post #17

Ha! Maybe Javascript developers will finally drop memory usage! You need to display the multiplication table? Please allocate 1GB of RAM. Oh, you want alternate row coloring? Here is another 100MB of CSS to do that. edit: this is a joke

Haha, the amount of downvotes of your very true comment just proves how many web developers are there on HN.

One even responded to an earlier comment of mine that we shouldn't be optimizing software for low-end machines because that would be going against technological progress...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46152275

Re: The RAM shortage comes for us all

#332

Post by 1718627440 » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 11:34 PM UTC

roadside_picnic wrote: post #37

I know this is mostly paranoid thinking on my behalf, but it almost feels like this is a conscious effort to attempt to destroy "personal" computing. I've been a huge advocate for local, open, generative AI as the best resistance to massive take-over by large corporations controlling all of this content creation. But even as it is (or "was" I should say), running decent models at home is prohibitively expensive for m…

That "dumb terminals" still need to run a modern web browser (likely Chrome) on a modern OS (likely Windows), these aren't exactly efficient with the available computing sources, so you could give up a lot of resources before you would actually trade it of for computing ability. Also resources have been risen exponentially for the last decades.

Re: The RAM shortage comes for us all

#333

Post by 1718627440 » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 11:37 PM UTC

Aardwolf wrote: post #29

Night_Thastus wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

16GB is more than fine if you're not doing high-end gaming, or heavy production workloads. No need for debloating. But it doesn't matter either way, because both 16 and 32GB have what, doubled, tripled? It's nuts. Even if you say "just buy less memory", now is a horrible time to be building a system.

I found web browser tabs eating too much memory when you only have 16GB

With that much RAM, you could fit multiple OSes entirely into memory. That is simply a lot.

Re: The RAM shortage comes for us all

#334

Post by jeroenhd » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 11:53 PM UTC

nish__ wrote: post #28

jacquesm wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you have very deep pockets. But I'm cheering you on from the sidelines.

Just need a half billion in upfront investment. And thank you for the support :)

I can't invest, your company doesn't have "AI" in the name and your business plan doesn't seem to involve shoving unwanted chatbots down everyone's throats at all. That's no way to run a modern business!

Re: The RAM shortage comes for us all

#335

Post by boznz » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 11:54 PM UTC

RachelF wrote: post #110

Perhaps we'll have to start optimizing software for performance and RAM usage again. I look at MS Teams currently using 1.5GB of RAM doing nothing.

Old codger here, happy to rewrite any of your bloated software to run on a twenty year old PC at reasonable rates..

Re: The RAM shortage comes for us all

#336

Post by jeroenhd » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 11:54 PM UTC

seanalltogether wrote: post #135

I wonder if these RAM shortages are going to cause the Steam Machine to be dead on arrival. Valve is probably not a big enough player to have secured production guarantees like Sony or Nintendo would have. If they try to launch with a price tag over $750, they're probably not going sell a lot.

Valve has already commented informally that Steam Machines will be priced on par with gaming PCs of similar hardware specs.

They won't be able to defeat console makers on the short term, but PC gamers will be paying the same price, so for those the value proposition remains unchanged.

Re: The RAM shortage comes for us all

#337

Post by paulddraper » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 11:56 PM UTC

fithisux wrote: post #10

32GB should be more than enough. You can go 16GB if you go native and throw some assembly in the mix. Use old school scripting languages. Debloat browsers. It has been long delayed.

Help I opened multiple tabs at once.

Re: The RAM shortage comes for us all

#338

Post by seanw444 » Fri, Dec 05, 2025, 12:03 AM UTC

seanalltogether wrote: post #135

I wonder if these RAM shortages are going to cause the Steam Machine to be dead on arrival. Valve is probably not a big enough player to have secured production guarantees like Sony or Nintendo would have. If they try to launch with a price tag over $750, they're probably not going sell a lot.

Or Valve draws from their deep pockets to sell them at a loss in the short term to gain product loyalty in the long term.

Re: The RAM shortage comes for us all

#339

Post by toast0 » Fri, Dec 05, 2025, 12:05 AM UTC

fullstop wrote: post #84

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just bought some 30pin SIMMs to rehab an old computer. That market is fine.

I have a bag of SIMMs that I saved, no idea why, because I clearly wrote BAD on the mylar bag. At time time I was messing around with the "badram" patch for Linux.

It's a lot harder to source ram with known errors than it is to get clean stuff, cause most of the stuff with known errors will be tossed. Makes sense to save it.

Re: The RAM shortage comes for us all

#340

Post by immibis » Fri, Dec 05, 2025, 12:05 AM UTC

bombcar wrote: post #182

oskarkk wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless the AI bubble pops.

One possible outcome is the remaining memory manufacturers have dedicated all their capacity for AI and when the bubble pops, they lose their customer and they go out of business too.

And then the RAM factories... get sold to another business, if that's more profitable than dismantling them.