engineers have unveiled CRAM, or Compressed RAM, a new technology designed to fit more data into available system memory. Presented on October 5 at the Linux Plumbers Conference in Prague, the system allows data to be read directly from compressed space.
The current implementation relies on specialized hardware for automatic decompression during reads. In read-only benchmarks, CRAM is 452 times faster than . Even with a 20% write workload, it maintains a performance lead by being 5.4 times faster than ZRAM.
While Reddit users are discussing its potential for the Linux-based , the device lacks the required hardware. The Steam Deck currently shares 16 GB of RAM between its CPU and GPU, but CRAM requires specific components not found in existing models.