How Microsoft Edge thinks about memory usage
The memory usage of a browser can be looked at in many ways and is dependent on several factors. Here, for Microsoft Edge, the memory metrics that we are most interested in are commit and private working set.
Commit is the total amount of private memory allocations made by a
process. Each process’s commit is separate, or private to the process. These allocations may reside in
random access memory (RAM), or in the page file on your hard drive. The page file is a reserved portion of your hard drive that is used as an extension of RAM for data that hasn’t been used recently. When in RAM, the commit is either in the private working set, or on lists the OS uses to manage memory, like the modified, or standby list. Commit can be seen in either the Browser Task Manager or the Windows Task Manager.
- Browser Task Manager – The “Memory” column shows the commit size for a process (Figure 1).
- Windows Task Manager – The “Commit size” column shows the commit size for a process. This column can be added to the Details tab (Figure 3).
Private working set is the amount of the private memory allocations made by the process that are currently in RAM and mapped into the process. This information can only be seen in the Windows Task Manager.
- Windows Task Manager– The “Memory” column in the Processes or Details tab shows the private working set for the process (Figure 3).
blogs.windows.com
