Minecraft continues to be one of the most addictive games for new generations of users with the added bonus that it’s available for almost every platform you can imagine; from Windows PCs to Macs running macOS, Chromebooks and even iOS and Android devices.
It works great on most devices whether mobile or tabletsalthough it must be recognized that it is always possible to improve it, especially if you have a PC with a large amount of usable RAM memory.
And it is that the operating system, by default, assigns Minecraft a tiny amount of 1 GB of RAM, which seems rare to us if it turns out that your PC computer has a total of 8 or 16 GB of RAM, which is common in new computer and laptop configurations.
Find out in this article how to improve the RAM memory of your PC.
While it might seem too complex to allocate more RAM in Minecraft, the v2.0 update from years ago changed all that. Here we wanted to explain how you can allocate more RAM in Minecraft for PC, as well as anyone running Minecraft on a server.
If you are passionate or a fan of this game, you may be interested to know all the new features that come with it. Minecraft Earth: beta, launch, platforms and gameplay. Check out all the news here.
How to allocate more RAM in Minecraft (V2.0.0 or later)
Although a while ago it seemed like a complex task to manually allocate more RAM to Minecraft, Microsoft changed all that with the release of version 2.0, released years ago.
In this way, since the aforementioned version, Minecraft offers the possibility to adjust the RAM using the Minecraft executable or launcher, without the need to edit text files and corrupt the game. Follow these steps:
- Make sure you have the latest version of Minecraft installed (except for the demo, which is limited to version 1.5).
- Check the total amount of RAM on your PC in ‘Start > Settings > System > About’.
- Start Minecraft by double-clicking the Minecraft icon on your desktop.
- Click on the “Boot Options” tab at the top right of the window.
- Make sure “Advanced Settings” is turned on (green switch) and select the profile you want to edit. If there is only one profile, click on it.
- Enable JVM argument switch.
- A line of text should appear, including the phrase -X1G . Replace ‘1’ with the number of gigabytes of RAM you want to allocate to Minecraft. You should not allow Minecraft to use more than two-thirds of your overall RAM or other issues will appear.
- Click “Save” for all changes to take effect.
It is done. The next time you launch Minecraft, the game will use the amount of RAM you have allocated available on your computer, following the steps below.
How to Allocate More RAM to a Minecraft Server
The process for allocating more RAM to Minecraft when hosted on a server is slightly different as it is not built into the executable or Launcher Just like the standard game.
Here are the steps to follow:
- Open your Minecraft server directory (the folder that contains the “Minecraft_server.exe” file that the Minecraft server starts with). If you are unsure of the location, search for “Minecraft_server” on your PC.
- Click ‘Start > New Item > Text Document’ on the PC to create a text document in the server directory.
- In the new text document, paste the following commands (if you are on PC): java -Xmx #### M -Xms #### M -exe Minecraft_Server.exe -o true PAUSE
- Replace #### with the value, in MB, that you want to allocate (1 GB = 1024 MB). For example, if you want to allocate 2 GB of RAM, enter 2048.
- Click ‘File > Save As…’ and change the ‘Save’ type to ‘All Files’. Rename the file server executable and change the extension from .txt to .bat.
- The file you created will now be the new one ‘launcher’ for your Minecraft server. Just double click to run it. Using the .bat file to start the server will automatically allocate the specified amount of RAM.
It wasn’t that complicated, right? Get back to enjoying your Minecraft game from any platform (including consoles), but with improved performance over the speed you could previously achieve with such a limited amount of RAM.
