A big, crucial update for Windows 10 was rolled out last month. Called the Windows 10 May 2020 update or the Windows 10 20H1 update, it brings some much-anticipated features and fixes to the popular operating system for PCs. The update is still rolling out in phases, so if you haven’t received it, it’s best to wait for a while.
Among the many features that the Windows 10 20H1 update offers, including changes to Settings, Cortana and more, the update also apparently reduces Google Chrome’s memory consumption.
Chrome is notorious for hogging system resources, causing the PC to slow down after long usage. The new update, as noted by Windows Latest, introduces a new useful value called “SegmentHead”, which reduces the memory consumption of some apps, including Google Chrome.
“Segment heap is a modern heap implementation that will generally reduce your overall memory usage,” according to Microsoft. The company said in a blog post, the new
Chromium-based Edge browser also uses SegmentHeap, and as a result, the memory usage has been reduced by 27%.
Google has also made changes to Chrome to make use of SegmentHeap, and PCs running Windows 10, version 2004 and later will see a reduction in memory 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,” a Google engineer noted in a commit.
However, even with the new change, both Google and Microsoft said the experience will ultimately depend on the configuration and usage of the device. But then again, a reduction of 27 per cent in memory usage will surely show good results. We expect Google to release an update to Chrome to incorporate the changes.