Microsoft has quietly retracted its own documentation that suggested 32GB RAM is the “no worries” upgrade for gaming, and 16GB RAM is the baseline. This support document was likely written using a large language model, and Windows Latest first spotted it before it was taken down. Microsoft also nuked a document that recommended Copilot+ PCs for gaming.
Microsoft has a “Learning Center” where it publishes guides and marketing articles to promote various Windows features, and these rank well in search results. It’s mostly used by Microsoft to push a narrative and also make it easier for users to make a choice when they search the web.
In the first week of April, Microsoft quietly published a support document titled “Gaming features: What the best Windows PC gaming systems have in common.”
At first, the document might appear to be about Windows 11’s gaming features, but it goes a step further and builds a narrative around the memory requirement.
In the support document, Microsoft clearly notes that:
“For most players, 16GB RAM is a practical starting point. Moving to 32GB RAM helps if you run Discord, browsers, or streaming tools alongside your games. That extra memory also gives newer titles more breathing room as memory demands continue to rise.” – Microsoft.
“16GB RAM is the baseline; 32GB is the ‘no worries’ upgrade,” the company concluded in the support document, which was first spotted by Windows Latest.
This was later picked up by other outlets and the gaming community, and it didn’t go well with gamers.
I run 200+ tabs in Firefox and have no problem with gaming. Not super high end gaming, but I could play Baldur’s Gate on reasonable settings, and regularly play the Age of Empires Definitive Editions/Age of Mythology Retold/Age of Empires 4. 16 GB RAM works mostly fine for me, though I do often feel a little constrained with aoe4 specifically.
32 would definitely be my recommended minimum for any power user like myself, but for the average user, 16 GB is enough even without getting into merely “basic user” levels.
I’m still on Windows 10 though, if that makes a difference. Microsoft has decided my processor is one generation too old to be allowed to “upgrade”.