Windows (not the best OS, but the one I know the most about), will lie to you about how much memory you have that's free. It puts data in RAM as cache. In the event you need that data, it's already loaded in RAM. Usually this is stuff like DLLs and executables for programs.

There's a difference between "free" memory, and "available" memory.

In addition, RAM is always going down in price, so 32G today costs what 16G did, some number of years ago. The same can be said for 16G vs 8G, etc. Though, the comparison becomes less relevant as you get into much smaller and older memory types, since the cost per dimm will only ever go so low.

Buy the memory, use as much of it as you can, as often as you can. Go wild with it. Enjoy.

[–] Johanno@feddit.org 7 points 2 hours ago

Use all the RAM you want, but if another program needs it give it back ffs!

[–] HelloHotel@lemmy.world 6 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

For me there are programs that "can acceptably use that much RAM" and those that it's "unacceptable", to me. what's 20% to 40% of my gaming rig's resources may be uncomfortably taxing and laggy for my laptop. Its okay to waste resources on my gaming rig but the laptop needs all it can get. I accept some software will not reasonably run on the laptop. My employer has stuck me on 10yo hardware before, running windows 10 pro + intrusive expensive antivirus and nobody is around to question why their computers are getting 5-15fps and locking up for a minute or two when you open chrome. It becomes normal. Any software is the host and/or backbone for other running software should focus on reducing it's own resource usage for the sake of its children.