Minecraft Forums

I'm trying to run Minecraft on my Windows 7 Desktop PC but the game always lags really badly. This PC has a built-in Graphics card and is an Intel Pentium (From the sticker I can see on the tower itself). I only have 4 gigs of RAM available and I don't think that's very good for Minecraft. I've also installed Optifine but still have no luck, the lag won't go away and I am now receiving an error message that says Minecraft has run out of memory. I do not know if I need more RAM, a new Graphics Card or even both. Should I bring my PC into Best Buy and see what they can do for it? I though it would be a good idea to ask you guys first, considering that everyone here plays Minecraft.
Also, would anyone here know how much it would cost me to get more RAM and/or a new and good Graphics Card. I would like an Nvidia, but hopefully one that is not too much money. Somewhere around $130 maybe? Anyways, I just need some help finding out how I can remove the lag and what I need to do so, I want to run Minecraft with good settings, so hopefully there is a way to do so. Thanks for the help.

Quote from Medoly

Lag doesn't rely on your RAM, but on your Graphics Card. You should try and increase the RAM manually. (Google "minecraft more ram")

What exactly would I be looking for here? I found another post from the forum on Google, do I click on that?

I started with 4 gigs of RAM but found two defective sticks and I'm down to two gigs. I'm running a 64x64 texture pack and distance at normal. It runs fine. Two things I can think of... one is your on-board graphics aren't up to it... as mine weren't. But I'm running something that optimizes the system called System Tuneup with something that's called turbo mode. So using the free NovaBench benchmarking... I once was getting about 25fps with NovaBench... that's not MC... but the graphics test. MC I was probably at 2-5fps when things got heated. I got a cheap videocard for about $70 with 1 gig of video RAM which brought the NB framerate to about 300 and the Tuneup program brought that up to 490fps. The actual MC framerate at 1080x1920 is in the 50-60fps range.

Quote from zombiegak

I started with 4 gigs of RAM but found two defective sticks and I'm down to two gigs. I'm running a 64x64 texture pack and distance at normal. It runs fine. Two things I can think of... one is your on-board graphics aren't up to it... as mine weren't. But I'm running something that optimizes the system called System Tuneup with something that's called turbo mode. So using the free NovaBench benchmarking... I once was getting about 25fps with NovaBench... that's not MC... but the graphics test. MC I was probably at 2-5fps when things got heated. I got a cheap videocard for about $70 with 1 gig of video RAM which brought the NB framerate to about 300 and the Tuneup program brought that up to 490fps. The actual MC framerate at 1080x1920 is in the 50-60fps range.

Thanks, I'll take your advice and probably purchase a new Graphics Card. I've heard from many sources that a Pentium is not a very good Graphics Card for Minecraft. Problem is, I usually run around only 10-15 FPS, and the speed only becomes slower and slower. I would like to have good graphics at 50-60 FPS, hopefully. I actually have one question for you though, would you suggest I purchase more RAM or consider a new Graphics Card first? Hopefully I don't need to spend too much money, I'd imagine I can find a pretty good Graphics Card at around $130, or maybe even a really good one. Thanks for your help.

I have 4 gigs of ram you can watch this video of me playing minecraft on my rig, and its smooth like butter
I have a ati radeon hd7770 card, so i will get to the point you need to buy a new GPU!