Minecraft: How to Allocate More RAM

Updated:

15 Mar 2022

Minecraft: How to Allocate More RAM

Check out this handy video guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhhKiXtdEO0

Video by: GuideRealm

Lag is one of the most annoying parts of any gamer’s experience. I happen to heavily mod my games, so I am particularly acquainted with this frustration, waiting for frames to load, hollering when the screen stutters or freezes in a life-or-death situation, and generally grumbling about the slowness that comes from a hefty game running a large amount of added content. Luckily, all is not lost. In Minecraft, there’s a simple trick to buff up your game so it can handle more stress: allocating RAM!

We won’t get into all the ins and outs of why allocating RAM can speed up your games, as this is meant to be a quick tutorial; all that matters is that it can. And it’s not nearly as hard as it sounds!

The first step when allocating RAM around your computer is double checking how much RAM you have available. To do this, click the Windows icon, which for most people is located in the bottom left corner of the screen. A search bar will appear; search for System Information.
- You’re gonna be hit with a lot of technical information, but only two values are relevant to you for this task: System Type and Total Physical Memory.
- When allocating RAM, it’s wise to never allocate more than half of your Total Physical Memory to any one program. I.E. If you have 16 Gigabytes of RAM, don’t allocate more than 8 Gigabytes to Minecraft.
- Also, if your System Type is x32-based, you can’t allocate more than 4 Gigabytes of RAM, regardless of what your Total Physical Memory is.
Now, with those numbers in mind, you’re going to open up Minecraft. While in the Launcher, locate and access the Installations tab.
- Find the Installation labeled Latest Release - hover over it with your mouse, but don’t click it. Instead, you’re going to move over to the little button with the three dots. Click that, and then click Edit.
- There should be a button at the bottom of the window labeled More Options. Click that and scroll down. Under “JVM Arguments” there will be a text box containing a long, complicated string of letters and numbers. Don’t worry, we’re only dealing with the first six characters! Change nothing but the fifth character, which should be a number followed by a G. That number indicates how much RAM is currently allocated to Minecraft.
- Simply delete this number and replace it with the amount of RAM (in Gigabytes) that you want to allocate to Minecraft.