Solved Trying to understand Vivaldi RAM usage
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@Pathduck said in Trying to understand Vivaldi RAM usage:
Define "ridiculously high".
What's your comparison?
What would a not "ridiculously" high RAM usage be for you?I meant in comparison with older browsers, that weren't multiprocess, think of Opera 12. Of course once I buy a new laptop with 16GB it won't be a problem, but it's no fun anymore with 8GB, because obviously I also run other apps besides Vivaldi. And Windows 10 is a complete joke, it uses way more RAM than Win 8.1, because of all of the services running in the background.
@Pathduck said in Trying to understand Vivaldi RAM usage:
Sounds about right. Or rather, sounds too low.
If one says a tab process uses 100MB - and that's generously low for some sites - if you have 50 tabs that equals 5GB just there.It also depends on what type of website you visit, some or heavier than others. But lately it's starting to get on my nerves a bit that I constantly need to monitor RAM usage. And I rather not use tab hibernation extensions. The built-in feature of Vivaldi, doesn't seem to work correctly. And it's also a waste of power usage if you once again need to load websites, not good for laptops.
Of course, my browsing style also plays a role, I open websites and then load multiple articles of these websites in the background and then I stack them, for later reading. So I often end up with 70+ tabs. When RAM usage gets bad, especially if Vivaldi runs in memory for a couple of days, you have no choice but to close and restart it, but it seems that RAM usage will once again go up even more quickly, even if many of the tabstacks are still in hibernation.
@Pathduck said in Trying to understand Vivaldi RAM usage:
Why don't you do that, and compare, giving each browser the same for a fair comparison, same extensions, same tabs etc.
It's too much time to test this, and I wouldn't be surprised if other browsers also have this problem. But I wonder if there is anything that could be done in Vivaldi to improve this, or is it a Chromium problem? But then again, since Vivaldi runs on top, it should be able to optimize Chromium, no?
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@RasheedHolland said in Trying to understand Vivaldi RAM usage:
I meant in comparison with older browsers, that weren't multiprocess, think of Opera 12.
That's ... not really all that relevant any more is it?
It's too much time to test this,
Then maybe you should not make claims about Vivaldi's "ridiculous" memory usage, as compared to other modern browsers.
But I wonder if there is anything that could be done in Vivaldi to improve this, or is it a Chromium problem?
You keep going in circles
It's an all modern browsers problem.But then again, since Vivaldi runs on top, it should be able to optimize Chromium, no?
If you have not realized yet, Vivaldi is just a User Interface on top of Chromium. The UI is what makes Vivaldi great.
All the stuff like memory handling, I/O, networking, rendering, audio+video playback, is handled by Chromium.
My only suggestions for you are:
- Stop hoarding tabs, use Bookmarks or Reading List instead
- Adapt your browsing habits to your system's limitations
- Restart your browser once a day, it is good for it
- Reboot your system once a day, it is good for it
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Ddalinar has marked this topic as solved on -
@Pathduck said in Trying to understand Vivaldi RAM usage:
@RasheedHolland said in Trying to understand Vivaldi RAM usage:
That's ... not really all that relevant any more is it? Then maybe you should not make claims about Vivaldi's "ridiculous" memory usage, as compared to other modern browsers.
Yes correct, perhaps I should do some testing. But like I said, I do think RAM usage of modern browsers in general (including Vivaldi) is ridiculous, compared to old skool browsers.
If you have not realized yet, Vivaldi is just a User Interface on top of Chromium. The UI is what makes Vivaldi great. All the stuff like memory handling, I/O, networking, rendering, audio+video playback, is handled by Chromium.
Yes I know, but from what I understood is that Chromium's performance can still be optimized, think of Thorium which claims to be a lot faster than other Chromium browsers.
Also, I sometimes feel like Vivaldi isn't handling RAM usage in a normal way. I just saw that from out of the blue, RAM usage went to 300MB (I don't know which website caused this), and then all of a sudden the Memory Compression process kicked in, and RAM usage went to 3.5GB, and none of the tabs were hibernated.
So how come that Vivaldi can all of a sudden use less RAM with the same amount of tabs open? Is this some kind of memory leak? Also, I was shocked to see how much RAM YouTube is using, if you open one tab, it might use 500MB, so crappy designed websites also play a role.
https://www.makeuseof.com/windows-memory-compression-guide/
My only suggestions for you are:
- Stop hoarding tabs, use Bookmarks or Reading List instead
- Adapt your browsing habits to your system's limitations
- Restart your browser once a day, it is good for it
- Reboot your system once a day, it is good for it
Like I said, restarting the browser once a day won't help. Also, it did gave me an idea, perhaps background tabs can start hibernated? The reading list is no option for me, I don't use the sidebar, and I'm not going to keep using the right-click context menu.
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@RasheedHolland said in Trying to understand Vivaldi RAM usage:
But like I said, I do think RAM usage of modern browsers in general (including Vivaldi) is ridiculous, compared to old skool browsers.
Yes, and I'd agree, but it's a pointless discussion. There's no point going "I want browsers to behave like Opera was in 2004 and be optimized for low-spec systems" because that's never going to happen.
think of Thorium which claims to be a lot faster than other Chromium browsers.
"Claims"...
Also, I sometimes feel like Vivaldi isn't handling RAM usage in a normal way.
"Feel"...
So how come that Vivaldi can all of a sudden use less RAM with the same amount of tabs open?
Less RAM? Modern applications do regular garbage collection. So memory use will fluctuate. Which you would've understood if you'd read the Mozilla blog I posted earlier.
Also, I was shocked to see how much RAM YouTube is using, if you open one tab, it might use 500MB, so crappy designed websites also play a role.
Yes, YT is a very heavy web "app". And that's what most users want, they want features and fancy stuff, not HTML looking like it was from 2005.
Also, it did gave me an idea, perhaps background tabs can start hibernated?
Yes, it's called "Lazy Load Restored Tabs" and it's the default setting for startup.
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@RasheedHolland I feel like the #1 thing that can be implemented to reduce Vivaldi RAM usage is to have an option to automatically hibernate all workspaces that are not in use for more than a certain # of minutes (e.g. last access 10+ minutes ago, hibernate the workspace)
with Workspaces, they are great because you can leave them open with a bunch of tabs for days or weeks. And some do get hibernated eventually but there is no "whole workspace" hibernation AFAIK which seems like it would be a logical thing to do.
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@Pathduck said in Trying to understand Vivaldi RAM usage:
Yes, and I'd agree, but it's a pointless discussion. There's no point going "I want browsers to behave like Opera was in 2004 and be optimized for low-spec systems" because that's never going to happen.
It's not a pointless discussion. Fact of the matter is that RAM usage of modern browsers is out of control, so something should be done about it in my opinion. And I wouldn't call 8GB RAM low specs.
"Feel"...
I already explained why it feels or looks like this, see beneath.
Less RAM? Modern applications do regular garbage collection. So memory use will fluctuate. Which you would've understood if you'd read the Mozilla blog I posted earlier.
That was quite an old post, and I know memory will fluctuate, but you would expect to see RAM being released as soon as you close tabs, but that's not what I'm seeing. So it feels/looks like Vivaldi is not always handling RAM in the correct way. But I will of course first need to compare it with other Chromium browsers.
Yes, YT is a very heavy web "app". And that's what most users want, they want features and fancy stuff, not HTML looking like it was from 2005.
Yes it's ridiculous, I even saw that one YouTube tab was using 1GB, I think RAM usage goes up when you keep scrolling down. This has to be one of the worst designed websites ever.
Yes, it's called "Lazy Load Restored Tabs" and it's the default setting for startup.
Yes, but what I meant is that what if middle-click would open the background tabs in a hibernated mode? That would solve my problem. I guess it's time to make a request. And it would also be cool if the built-in ''Memory Saver'' feature would actually work.
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@dalinar said in Trying to understand Vivaldi RAM usage:
@RasheedHolland I feel like the #1 thing that can be implemented to reduce Vivaldi RAM usage is to have an option to automatically hibernate all workspaces that are not in use for more than a certain # of minutes (e.g. last access 10+ minutes ago, hibernate the workspace)
Well, there already seems to be a ''Memory Saver'' feature, but it doesn't seem to do anything, and it's based on the built-in Chromium feature, so it's not developed by Vivaldi. Also, I don't want to see my workspaces being hibernated, but it depends on how you're using the browser.
I do use the ''Hibernate Tab Stacks'' feature sometimes, problem is that it often doesn't seem to free up much RAM. The only thing that helps is the built-in Memory Compression feature in Windows, but because Vivaldi is so resource hungry, RAM usage will go up in no time.
https://woshub.com/memory-compression-process-high-usage-windows-10/
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BTW, I came across this interesting article, comparing RAM usage of browsers. So at least in theory it should be possible for Chromium based browsers to reduce memory usage. Vivaldi wasn't mentioned though. Actually, now that I think of it, the introduction of Portals in Vivaldi 6.2, was also supposed to reduce RAM usage, so it's not just theoretical.
https://cloudzy.com/blog/which-browsers-use-the-least-memory/
https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-on-desktop-6-2/ -
Another interesting thing that I noticed is that two companies are currently developing two completely new browser engines. I assume they will mostly focus on speed, but hopefully also on reducing RAM usage. Perhaps Vivaldi will one day be able to switch from Chromium/Blink, who knows.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(web_browser)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladybird_(web_browser) (macOS) -
BTW, what about this stuff? Will Vivaldi also join this, and perhaps they wil also be able to make changes to Chromium? Because currently, mostly Google and Microsoft are running the show of course.
https://blog.chromium.org/2025/01/announcing-supporters-of-chromium-based.html
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@RasheedHolland Ars Technica had an article on this too. I couldn't decide on where would be a could place to mention it here so I didn't
Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Opera agree on something—supporting Chromium
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@lfisk said in Trying to understand Vivaldi RAM usage:
@RasheedHolland Ars Technica had an article on this too. I couldn't decide on where would be a could place to mention it here so I didn't
Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Opera agree on something—supporting Chromium
Yes thanks, it's probably also because Google is scared that they will have to sell Chrome to some other company. So now they make it seem that they aren't the only ones in control. Would be cool if Vivaldi would also be able to make certain changes to Chromium.
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@RasheedHolland Opera is in the #2 and it is bad also... I know because I use both Vivaldi (multiple profiles).. and I use one Opera browser as my chat browswer.. it is where i have discord, whatsapp, usually use youtube.. and various other small things.. like running a speed test.. and it grows to several GB quickly.. I have Auto Tab Discard installed so that it freezes most tabs when I don't use them.. yet still over a day or 2 it will sometimes grow to use up maybe up to 3.something GB.
The solution then is to close and reopen Opera.. then it shrinks down to about 1GB .. and the process starts again. I have to do this because I'm on a severely RAM limited laptop (16GB).. as 32GB on ultrabooks wasn't common in january 2021 when I bought it.
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There is a Memory Saver setting in Vivaldi.
Type
chrome://settingsin the browser, select Performance and the setting is under Memory. It explains what the setting does and there are three options for the setting:- Moderate
- Balanced (recommended)
- Maximum
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@edwardp said in Trying to understand Vivaldi RAM usage:
There is a Memory Saver setting in Vivaldi.
Type
chrome://settingsin the browser, select Performance and the setting is under Memory. It explains what the setting does and there are three options for the setting:- Moderate
- Balanced (recommended)
- Maximum
Yes, but it doesn't seem to work correctly, I believe a bugreport has already been made.
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@dalinar said in Trying to understand Vivaldi RAM usage:
@RasheedHolland Opera is in the #2 and it is bad also... I know because I use both Vivaldi (multiple profiles).. and I use one Opera browser as my chat browswer.. it is where i have discord, whatsapp, usually use youtube.. and various other small things.. like running a speed test.. and it grows to several GB quickly.. I have Auto Tab Discard installed so that it freezes most tabs when I don't use them.. yet still over a day or 2 it will sometimes grow to use up maybe up to 3.something GB.
The solution then is to close and reopen Opera.. then it shrinks down to about 1GB .. and the process starts again. I have to do this because I'm on a severely RAM limited laptop (16GB).. as 32GB on ultrabooks wasn't common in january 2021 when I bought it.
Yes, I wouldn't be surprised if it's a Chromium thing, but browsers running on top should still be able to tweak RAM usage. Of course if you have a PC with 16GB RAM, then it's not a major issue, but with 8GB it's getting annoying.
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@dalinar said in Trying to understand Vivaldi RAM usage:
Opera is in the #2 and it is bad also... I know because I use both Vivaldi (multiple profiles).. and I use one Opera browser as my chat browswer.. it is where i have discord, whatsapp, usually use youtube.. and various other small things.. like running a speed test.. and it grows to several GB quickly..
BTW, I've just rebooted Win 10 and launched Vivaldi, 260 tabs are active, I activated 5 tabs so the other 255 are hibernated. I noticed that these 5 tabs use about 500MB RAM and in the Windows Task Manager I can see that Vivaldi is already using using 1GB RAM.
So isn't this quite high, or do the hibernated tabs also use memory? And I suppose it also depends on the how heavy those website exactly are? For example, this website (see link) at first used 220MB and now it's down to 160MB, I wonder what's up with that.
