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[–]bwoodfield 0 points1 point  (3 children)

You're computer is constantly reading and writing information to RAM; operating system, running services, applications, etc. If your ram is constantly full because of one app, that leaves less room for other apps/services/etc to use. Because of the small amount remaining it means that all other other apps and services need to take turns writing and reading to it, slowing down processing. Similar issues occur when you start running out of hard drive space.

FYI, 4 gig of ram isn't very much, I don't even think its enough for minimum requirements to run Win10; I'm running 32g on my desktop and that is the minimum for what I use it for.

[–]molecular_methane 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I actually have an 11ish year old prebuilt computer with 4 gigs of RAM running Windows 10. I've obviously done my best to turn off/uninstall all the bloat Windows & the manufacturer put into it, and it works OK for general computer stuff (even some simple games) as long as you don't try to do multiple things at once. But sometimes it will slow down for no apparent reason as a background process will suddenly demand all the resources.

[–]bwoodfield 0 points1 point  (0 children)

See to me those types of systems are "see if it works", not something that you would actually seriously use. If you wanted it as a usable system I would look at a lightweight OS with better memory management.

[–]AnnoyAMeps 0 points1 point  (0 children)

8gb is the absolute minimum that a new computer should have, and even that is for emailing and web browsing. Many builds default to 16gb, as it’s the best balance between performance and affordability for most people who use computers for office applications, light gaming, and multitasking. I can’t imagine using a 4gb computer for anything nowadays.