If I’d try that, I’d end up with no RAM at all…
The GPU is integrated and uses system RAM as VRAM. Increasing the available VRAM should improve performance in titles with lots of high-res textures.
You and that other technological genius are wrong. The device ships with 8GB of RAM and tools like CryoUtilities allow for more of that to allocated to the GPU framebuffer. This allows for measurably better performance. Cryo does this by increasing allocated GPU VRAM and enabling more swapping of RAM to disk, thereby giving the deck more usable VRAM.
Uh, actually RAM amount is the difference between some games being playable or not at all, and there are plenty of game issues related to insufficient/low memory
On the Steam Deck? I’ve never heard anyone mention the amount of memory being the bottleneck on there.
Not the OP, but it’s decently well documented that there are games out there that are having a tough time with the memory constraints of the Steam Deck’s 16 GB: https://youtu.be/z94TcihZxME?t=145
Now I’ll grant that maybe it’s a memory leak in TLoU that would cause you to still run into issues regardless of maximum memory but 16 GB is the recommended minimum and is starting to be the minimum recommended for other newer games and that’s without having a chunk set aside for VRAM, so I’d bet that you’d see decent performance gains just by increasing the available RAM without it running at higher clocks.
The list of games that want combined RAM/VRAM in excess of 16GB is steadily increasing*, if there were an easy means of getting my Steam Deck to 32 GB, I’d jump on it. I haven’t had less than 32 GB in my desktop daily driver since 2017 and honestly the 64 GB I have now starts to feel anemic once you’ve got a VM or two running with Chrome and a game all having to contend for the same resources. Honestly, I’ve never felt like I had too much memory, but I have definitely felt it performance wise when I don’t have enough, where things start to stutter and the frame pacing goes all to hell while things are shuffled in and out of memory. Speed isn’t nothing, but there is definitely an increasing argument to be made for quantity as well.
*
- https://store.steampowered.com/app/1716740/STARFIELD/
- https://store.steampowered.com/app/990080/Hogwarts_Legacy/
- https://store.steampowered.com/app/1282100/Remnant_II/
- https://store.steampowered.com/app/1649240/Returnal/
- https://store.steampowered.com/app/1680880/Forspoken/
- https://store.steampowered.com/app/2124490/SILENT_HILL_2/
- https://store.steampowered.com/app/1888930/The_Last_of_Us_Part_I/
It’s not that the RAM hungry ones don’t run, it’s that they fill up the RAM and create stuttering - sometimes even with a big page file. Emulators can do this, for example.
And more RAM is particularly good because the CPU and GPU pull from the same pool of RAM in the device.
I’m supposed to prove a negative? Do you want me to show a video of games crashing
Games that scale up with play (more players, growing environments, etc) tend to use more RAM over time, and especially such games with mods benefit from more RAM.
Anno, various building/construction games like Cities, Arm, DCS, Warzone whatever. Plenty of games will run with 8-16GB but run better with more. Yes, you can play the game with the “required” specs but that doesn’t mean they run great, and CPU/GPU isn’t always the bottleneck in larger environments.
I played through GoW on Deck but it definitely had a memory leak that would cause crashing after a bit. More RAM would have extended the play time despite that issue, and I’ve a couple other titles where the odd crash is likely for similar reasons.
Can we go back to the good old days where our devices had openings for RAM and storage upgrades please?
Especially for things like this.
Since when did small handheld devices have openings for RAM and storage upgrades?
Laptops always used to. Even most of those don’t any more.
Apple are certainly the worst offender here (want 2TB storage in your iPad Pro, that’ll be an extra £1250 please), but they’re not alone.
I just don’t think most / any connectors are going to be compatible with modern ddr speeds. Even doing the layout on these smd pads takes a lot of work to make it right. You’d be taking a major speed downgrade which would limit your performance way more than this ram amount upgrade overcomes.
Quick Edit: storage is another beast entirely where I agree with you completely. Looks like steam deck you can upgrade the ssd and it’s at least way easier than this. Comparable to a laptop.
Wouldn’t be a speed downgrade for the steamdeck, for future generarions I would agree. I think thickness is the primary factor.
Yeah I thought about this some more. I totally forgot that even on my PC I installed ram through a connector. So there is a capability, but my experience is just more in an embedded electronics place where it really isn’t standard just to save space and cost. We also theoretically know the requirements going in so leaving space to upgrade isn’t required like it is for a generic platform like a PC or steamdeck. I don’t think the typical DIMM connectors would work with the form factor, but a different connector could maybe do it. There could also possibly be reliability concerns with ram in a handheld around whatever movement the connector, is expected to deal with, but that couldn’t be overcome. So yeah it’s for sure possible but it would take some work.
I’d love a standardized tiny socket like the MMC modules or something alike. A DIMM socket would be far too large.
Even though upgrading RAM in a steam deck wouldn’t be that useful it increases the ability to repair it.
Yeah, we’d need some sort of modular RAM size that’s small. No idea why we have 2TB of lightning fast storage and it’s the size of a postage stamp, but the RAM sticks are still more or less the same clunky sizes we had 30 years ago.
It’s because ram is even faster with lower latency.
Pcie4.0x4 nvme is 40Gbps (I presume you mean pcie4.0 which is the newest and greatest over pcie3.0).
And that’s if it can actually sustain that level of read/write consistently, and isn’t just dumping data into a buffer.
DDR3 1333mhz is 80Gbps (which is 15 years old).
DDR4 2133 is 136Gbps.
These are just rough numbers. Actual throughput is going to depend on number of channels, mobo, CPU etc.
Sure, if you want your device to be half an inch thicker, and more expensive.
The chips themselves are the most expensive parts usually, much more than a socket and additional daughterboard. And if they were all modular you can reuse those chips for other devices!
Also, even back in the chunky early 2000s IBM Thinkpad days I never really minded the size or weight, that’s just my own opinion though.
This is awesome, but beyond my skill level.
Impressive!
![[MOD] SteamDeck upgrade to 32gb of ram(lemmy.ml)](https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/4e4b508f-e6cf-45b3-b3cc-ff897cada107.jpeg){kind=link}