Microsoft recently introduced the Windows segment heap memory improvement feature for the Edge browser to reduce high system memory requirements. The company announced major memory usage reductions in its Chromium-based Edge browser on Windows 10 2004 that appear to come from Project Reunion, a new API that attempts to unify Win32 and the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps.
You might be familiar with Microsoft’s move to adopt the Chromium browser source for its Edge browser, while dropping its own Edge HTML renderer.
Now, Google Chrome’s RAM/memory hog might soon be a thing of the past as Microsoft has introduced a new feature in Windows 10 that could reduce the Chrome browser’s memory usage significantly. According to a recent report from Windows Latest, the Windows 10 May 2020 update (20H1) has started rolling out to users and it introduces the Windows “segment heap memory improvements” that will reduce the overall memory usage of Win32 apps like Google Chrome.
Google’s Chrome browser has a reputation for being a memory hog. But with changes made in Windows 10 version 2004, and the May 2020 update, the Chrome browser will now use less of the system memory. Microsoft explains that the latest update for Windows 10 introduces a new “Segment Heap” value for developers, which is a modern heap implementation that will generally “reduce overall memory usage” on Windows 10 version 2004 or newer. The company has confirmed that it has already started using the new value in its Chromium-based Edge browser, with early tests showing a memory reduction of up to 27%.
Memory-use reduction value depends on each device, the device’s own configuration and usage, but whatever the exact reduction value is going to be, lower memory use should definitely help most end users. The new Microsoft Edge shares the same underlying technology as Google Chrome courtesy of the open-source “Chromium” project. Microsoft earlier this month began pushing the new Microsoft Edge to Windows 10 users via Windows Update.
But the improvements to memory usage coming to Edge and Chrome derive from Microsoft expanding the availability of Windows segment heap memory to Win32 applications. Google Chrome is still the most popular web browser used thus far, but it has been under controversy for its memory hogging nature.
Microsoft didn’t have that much success in getting developers of Windows apps to adopt UWP. While the “legacy Edge” was a UWP app, Google never made Chrome a UWP, as it was still sticking with Win32. The Project Reunion now rolls up the Win32 API with the UWP API. As noted by Microsoft the “segment heap” API was one of the APIs that was previously limited to UWP applications. But now under Project Reunion, it has become available to all developers of Win32 apps. That should allow other Win32 .exe applications to reduce memory usage too, including Mozilla Firefox and every other developer that builds upon Win32 applications.
Google’s programmer and Chromium member, Bruce Dawson, clarified that memory-use reductions are likely to be greatest on Windows 10 PCs with CPUs featuring more cores, but they still could save hundreds of megabytes (MB) in their web browser usage.
“Experiments with per-machine opting-in to the segment heap for chrome.exe suggests that this could save hundreds of MB in the browser and Network Service utility processes, among others, on some machines. Actual results will vary widely, with the greatest savings coming on many-core machines,” Dawson wrote in a patch for Chromium.
Adding a SegmentHeap entry to the chrome.exe manifest will tell recent-enough versions of Windows (20-04 and beyond) to opt chrome.exe into using the segment heap instead of the legacy heap, Dawson explained.
Hello, my name is NICK Richardson. I’m an avid PC and tech fan since the good old days of RIVA TNT2, and 3DFX interactive “Voodoo” gaming cards. I love playing mostly First-person shooters, and I’m a die-hard fan of this FPS genre, since the good ‘old Doom and Wolfenstein days.
MUSIC has always been my passion/roots, but I started gaming “casually” when I was young on Nvidia’s GeForce3 series of cards. I’m by no means an avid or a hardcore gamer though, but I just love stuff related to the PC, Games, and technology in general. I’ve been involved with many indie Metal bands worldwide, and have helped them promote their albums in record labels. I’m a very broad-minded down to earth guy. MUSIC is my inner expression, and soul.
Contact: Email
Yeei for modern APIs providing optimizations!
Anyone here use Google Chrome?
I use both chrome and edge for my work.
Same. I’ve been using Edge a lot for the last 6 months, started as a try out, and now I don’t even remember that I’m using it. I rarely use Firefox .
So literally the only reason to upgrade to 12/16/32 gigs of ram is almost gone? I got 0 games that need more than 8 gigs of ram, even the new Doom/Battlefield/ACreed: O work fine with 0 slowdowns and stuttering
Video editing is also never hitting 8 gigs of ram, as long as i dont use the ram hungry apps that is…
Only reason to upgrade is when i wanna watch youtube and play games at the same time.
I have been wondering about this high RAM usage though.Firefox is not that much of a memory hog imo, but there are guys who complain even about Firefox eating up a lot of system memory.
So they finally decided to unify win 32 and UWP apps ?
I just hope this fix from Microsoft actually works somehow, if not to a greater extent.
Still… user Firefox instead.
Currently in between changing to Vivaldi browser to get rid of this slow and buggy browser. I will miss Google sync like I would miss my left nut but I’m tired of bugs and how Google acts all just while they knee to the winnie the pooh
Everything is POS and garbage to you. All your comments under each topic are full of negativity. Hardly seen a positive constructive comment from you.
No one cares about what you think and feel about all this.
I care.
I’m sorry you were dropped on your head as an ugly baby.
They can buff Edge all they want, not touching that with a 10 foot pole.
Why not? I’m really curious. It’s pretty good.
WOW..You must be fun at parties. Unless you find them to be trash or BS.
This person clearly programmed designed and manufactured their own computing hardware, wrote their own operating system and internet browser, and it all works completely perfectly, secure, and stable, and is not at all garbage. But they keep everything closed source and locked away in their parents basement.
On Brave right now. Highly recommend a “tab suspender” add-on of some sort.
You shouldn’t be using leftist Mozilla Firefox either. I advise smth like Vivaldi or Brave or similar.
Awesome! Its genuinely remarkable post, I have got much clear idea regarding from this post
Pretty! This has been a really wonderful post. Many thanks for providing these details.
You’re so awesome! I don’t believe I have read a single thing like that before. So great to find someone with some original thoughts on this topic. Really.. thank you for starting this up. This website is something that is needed on the internet, someone with a little originality!
Awesome! Its genuinely remarkable post, I have got much clear idea regarding from this post
very informative articles or reviews at this time.