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Are you sure you're not looking at the SIZE requirements for games, because... most games will absolutely run with 4 to 6 gigs of available ram.
Can you show a picture of Steam using 5 GB of RAM? It should be around 250 MB to maybe 500 MB at most. Anything higher and something is wrong.
Because that is absolutely ridiculous.
Also currently 16 GB RAM is more than enough for any game on the market.
A game listing, for example, 8 gb of ram does not use 8 gb. It means your computer should have 8 gb so you can ensure it works, even with windows and other stuff in the background also using ram.
Also, if windows and steam are using 5 gb, you are also running other stuff. Or a very bloated windows.
Also the recommendation is usually with a fair bit of wiggle room.
So, lets say, a game that recommends 8GB in your system may only use 3 GB or so during gameplay by itself with all settings at max but combined with your OS and such it may be 6-7 overall.
Also some RAM is left free so new files can be loaded and switched into the RAM, if the RAM runs completely full your whole system will basically grind to a hold so no game will ever use ALL your RAM if not really needed.
I've got an MSI laptop, bought it this year (altough it's a new old stock year old model). I have about 1100 steam games. I bought an extra 8 GB RAM as I found one going cheap. It made no difference to the games.
I only got it for two reasons - a couple of racing games with Targa Fiorio and other masssive tracks, and my various bits of daft music production.
So, yeah, absolutely no need for it at all.
The only time you will notice that you need it is when you start playing a game and it suffers from hitching every few seconds, say. That's the sort of behaviour that means the system is having to use page file to bung memory contents into.
Anyway, you have to remember that developers and publishers deliberately don't try to push RAM usage or other specs up (unless it's an actual selling point, like graphical fidelity). They commonly develop a game and it then gets trimmed down, so that assets are culled to fit the average or most basic of requirements.
After all, you want you game to be playable by as many people as possible.
So, 8 GB is fine for the time being. But yeah, ALWAYS pay attention to spec requirements. They're there for a reason.
What's the point in recommending 12 GB if 12 GB requires hoops to jump through and is determental?
You have two types of syetm memory
Real Ram - Which is the memry on the actual ram chips.
Video Ram - Which is the MEmory on you Video card (if you have one) if you're using integrated this is the same as your Active System Ram.
Paged Memory - Which exist in a file on your PC.
Whenever you alt tab away from an item, Windows will generally shift most of it from Active RAm to paged memory.
In your case what happens is Steam may be using 5 Gigs but in reality its only using maybe half a gig when you its not in foreground on screen.
Also keep in mind that as otehr have said, no game actually needs 166 but many devs place it as an overshoot because they also assume you' have stuff running in the background like AV, variouus windows, etc.
On a sidenote. Steam should NOT be taking up 5 gigs for anyone.
And again, they list certain amounts to ensure that the game runs. Many games that have 8GB listed (my laptop has 8GB, therefore that amount as example), merely use 1-3GB of active RAM. However, your Windows and other programs (like anti-virus, browsers, GPU config programs, etc) also generally uses around 2-3GB of active RAM. So if you combine those, you have 3-6GB of RAM that's actually actively in use. So a computer that has 8GB of RAM, can run the game without issue regarding RAM and that's why developers then recommend 8GB of RAM in your computer. Would they recommend 4GB, you'd run into issues.
Game developers know that the game is not the only program running, they factor that in when they write the requirements.
Regarding the 12GB, You generally want to use equal RAM sticks, which amounts to 2x8GB = 16GB.
Allocated RAM is not used RAM. It's basically a bucket inside a larger bucket, and neither of them have to be full despite of their reported size.
Also default Win10 uses less than 3 GB of RAM and uses memory compression.
Don't ask us if you need more RAM. Check it yourself. If it takes ages to get your desktop back after you exit or Alt-Tab, then you have a case.
While 5GB is ridiculously high, make sure you're not leaving processes open, as the memory usage will go up if you're chatting with several friends at once, or have browser windows within Steam open.
That's a common mistake.