Windows 8 to reduce memory usage
In the latest Building Windows 8 blog, Bill Karagounis, group program manager for Microsoft's Performance team, detailed some of the tricks that the company has employed in the new OS to optimize the use of memory.
One such trick is memory combining. Windows applications can reserve multiple chunks of system memory, not just what for they need now but what for they may need in the future. The more apps that do this, the more memory used up.
Memory combining searches system RAM for duplicate content and then frees up the duplicates to hold just a single copy. If an app needs that freed-up memory in the future, Windows provides what's called a "private copy." Such a process can make anywhere from 10 to 100s of megabytes available, according to Karagounis.
A healthy amount of system RAM is also taken up by Windows services. Open Task Manager, click on the Services tab, and you'll see the sheer number of services chewing up precious memory.
