- Windows Latest discovered Discord and other Chromium and Electron-based apps with high RAM usage
- RAM usage increases from 1GB to 4GB on Discord both in and out of voice chat
- It comes at a time when RAM kit prices are extremely high
It’s no secret at the moment that the PC hardware market is in an unstable state, with RAM kit prices skyrocketing like never before due to the current AI bubble, and that’s why this Windows 11 issue is much more noticeable at this stage.
As reported by Windows Latest, Discord and other Windows 11 apps using the Electron framework are consuming significant amounts of RAM, with Discord noticeably increasing from 1GB to 4GB. This is because these apps use the Chromium browser instance and Node.js (a JavaScript runtime) for desktop app functionality, which appears to cause memory leaks.
As a frequent Discord user, I have noticed several cases where RAM usage exceeds 1GB, steadily increasing the longer it is open and active. While it’s not unusual for apps to use a decent amount of system memory, it becomes problematic when gaming or using other resource-intensive apps.
Like Windows Latest, I tested this by joining a server and entering voice chat to broadcast; Before voice chat streaming was enabled, Discord’s RAM usage was 780MB, and once I started streaming, it managed to skyrocket up to 1.4GB after a few minutes (screenshots below).
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Now this makes sense, especially when streaming content in high resolutions like 1080p or 1440p. However, the most frustrating aspect is that even after ending the stream (and even abandoning voice chat entirely), the 1.4GB RAM usage did not decrease, but instead constantly fluctuated between 1.2GB and 1.4GB, which was only resolved by restarting Discord completely.
This now adds more explanation as to why game performance may be worse than usual when Discord is active in the background, with instant improvements seen when the app is closed completely.
While users with 32GB or 64GB of RAM may not find this very problematic, it is still a part of the RAM that can affect functionality and speeds, and is certainly a bigger concern for users who only have 8GB or 16GB of RAM, and with the prices of RAM kits exceeding the normal standard due to the rise of AI, this is the worst time for apps to hog system memory.
Analysis: This is just another addition to the current RAM problems
It’s one thing for Microsoft’s Windows 11 to suffer from several issues, with background processes actively affecting game performance for gamers and bloatware leaving users frustrated by the operating system’s lack of usability, but apps like Discord adding to the problem, along with the current demand for memory, only make things worse.
While I personally hope Discord adds native support on SteamOS with a dedicated app for its gameplay, it seems like fixing this memory leak (which is what it appears to be) should be the priority.
RAM pricing issues will only get worse from here as long as this AI boom persists, and if fixes can’t be introduced into Discord and other Chromium-based apps using more memory than necessary, it will leave more users frustrated.
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