Google Chrome
Google Chrome, the most popular cross-platform browser on the web. Open as many tabs as you want, sign in to your Google account to sync your history, bookmarks and passwords.
- Version :
126.0.6478.127 - Downloads:
665 - Release date :
24/06/2024 - Auteur :
Google - Licence :
Free license - Categories:
Internet
- Operating system :
Android, Linux, Windows 10/11, Windows Portable – 10/11, iOS iPhone / iPad, macOS
Chrome is one of the most used browsers in the world and several of its features help improve battery life. If the saver reduces performance, Google’s new idea for Windows 11 and 10 is based on a completely different trick related to audio.
Chrome will benefit from audio offloading
Windows Latest tells us that an audio offloading function has been spotted for Windows. To do this, Chrome offloads audio processing to the device’s dedicated audio processor instead of using the CPU, as currently.
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For example, when you watch a video, the audio processing is handled by the CPU which consumes battery. The audio offload feature therefore allows it to stay in standby state for longer, which extends battery life.
This is not new since Microsoft already mentioned this feature in 2019. Windows supports offloaded hardware audio processing and by increasing the audio buffer size, the CPU remains idle for longer.
Google, the Redmond firm and Intel have been working on audio offloading for some time and it appears that it is ready for deployment.
In the Canary version of Chrome, the feature is called Audio offload for video streaming. Google specifies, however, that audio offloading is only enabled for audio streams with a latency tag set to kPlayBack. It is disabled for other types of latency.
Use dedicated audio processor instead of CPU
Windows Latest noticed that when the feature is enabled via command line, the default buffer time is 50ms. So Chrome users should make sure that the audio service is sandboxed when enabling it since audio offloading requires the audio service to be at a low integrity level.
Note that this feature is in the testing phase: there is no indication when it will be available to Chrome users on Windows. It is possible that Microsoft Edge is entitled to this since the browser uses the same Chromium engine.
To put it simply: the Audio Offload feature will help extend the device’s battery life when you’re listening to audio or watching videos in Chrome by using the dedicated audio processor instead of the main CPU.
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