Here's what you need to run Returnal on PC

[WYP]

32GB of RAM and SSD storage are recommended.



Have a look at Returnal's PC system requirements.

 

[Dicehunter]

So many devs have these weirdly high ram recommendations and when we finally get the game in hand we see that they actually use a fraction of the recommended.


I would bet my left DIMM slot that even maxed out at 4K this game doesn't use over maybe 8GB of memory.

 

[meuvoy]

So many devs have these weirdly high ram recommendations and when we finally get the game in hand we see that they actually use a fraction of the recommended.

They're accounting for the users who will try to play the game with 24 chrome tabs plus photoshop, illustrator, teams and something else open in the background. I used to laugh at these RAM requirements just as you, but since I started working and met (many) people that do this I understood why devs do this. People don't seem to understand what leaving a program open in the background means.

A lot of this comes from modern smartphone usage, since smartphones tend to clear RAM and suspend background apps people seem to think it doesn't matter. I remember youtuber "UrAVGConsumer" once did a video where he shows how many tabs are open on his iphone and he had like 1000 tabs open, I know my mother and father would do the same if I didn't clear their phones from time to time, and i've seen some of my colleagues in a similar situation.

We were just born at a time where this was simply not possible (I suppose) and we since learned not to do it, others either didn't have access to such computing devices, or are simply younger and don't understand it, because they don't have to. And I think there's more of them than there are of us.

 

[Dicehunter]

They're accounting for the users who will try to play the game with 24 chrome tabs plus photoshop, illustrator, teams and something else open in the background. I used to laugh at these RAM requirements just as you, but since I started working and met (many) people that do this I understood why devs do this. People don't seem to understand what leaving a program open in the background means.

A lot of this comes from modern smartphone usage, since smartphones tend to clear RAM and suspend background apps people seem to think it doesn't matter. I remember youtuber "UrAVGConsumer" once did a video where he shows how many tabs are open on his iphone and he had like 1000 tabs open, I know my mother and father would do the same if I didn't clear their phones from time to time, and i've seen some of my colleagues in a similar situation.

We were just born at a time where this was simply not possible (I suppose) and we since learned not to do it, others either didn't have access to such computing devices, or are simply younger and don't understand it, because they don't have to. And I think there's more of them than there are of us.

Logical explanation.

 

[trawetSluaP]

So many devs have these weirdly high ram recommendations and when we finally get the game in hand we see that they actually use a fraction of the recommended.


I would bet my left DIMM slot that even maxed out at 4K this game doesn't use over maybe 8GB of memory.

Depends on the game and what setting you have enabled.

Playing The Division 2 at 1440p with maxed out settings I've seen VRAM usage hit 17GB on occasion. Destiny 2 on the other hand uses a fraction of that.

 

[NeverBackDown]

Also remember that when an aplic requires that much memory it's not actively using all that at once, usual it request from the OS an allocation of memory. The OS allocates those memory cells to that application and then the application is free to use it. The game in this case is still responsible for releasing unused data however.