Google disables Windows 10 RAM reduction in Chrome
Summary
Google has decided to disable a feature in Windows 10 version 2004 that allowed Chrome and Microsoft Edge browsers to use a lot less RAM. Windows 10 gave Win32 apps including Chrome access to a segment heap API to allow apps to reduce memory usage, but as Techdows spotted, Chromium engineers have decided for now to turn off the feature by default in Chrome 85 after discovering it has a negative impact on CPU usage. Reducing the impact on CPU would require "significant changes across the entire browser codebase", and Microsofts Windows team is investigating whether it can improve the performance of segment heap. "In the short term this is a good trade-off of one resource for another as memory/commit usage is a significant pain point for browser users," argued the Microsoft employee. "Although I have heard encouraging things about memory savings from lab tests I dont see any way for us to leave this enabled until we have clean telemetry data and lab tests on 20H1, neither of which will be happening in time for M85," wrote Chromium member Bruce Dawson.