**Hello, I am new here so please excuse me if I have done something wrong on this post**
i have seen several postings of how to allocate more RAM to minecraft, and I have. First, a couple of specs:
Intel core i7
16gb RAM
Intel integrated graphics
Windows *(not sure if this is relevant, but just in case)
Toshiba Satellite s70 series
I have allocated 6GB of RAM to MC, changed max frame-rate, chunk limit, etc. And I cannot get above 60 fps. Yet what is strange is minecraft will accept the RAM, but not use it. (will insert ic once I figure out how to)
Used Memory: 17% (1001 MB) of 5888MB
Allocated Memory: 100% (5888MB)
Thank you for reading, and If you know any way to maybe force mc to accept more RAM or something like that, please comment!
If Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter were all destroyed, 90% of teens would go insane. If you're one of the 10% that would be laughing at them, copy & paste this into your signature and hope it happens.
Allocating more memory can be helpful but can cause system instability more often than it helps (at least in Windows). Windows requires a specific amount of RAM to run. Generally speaking, 4GB of most RAM will cover anything you'd need outside of gaming. Seeing as you have 16, you should be fine for games, regardless of it's quality.
Why it causes system instability (not necessary to read, just a little heads up):
As stated previously, your system may use up to 4GB of RAM for most processes, but this includes stuff that runs in the background on top of your OS' basic processes. 4GB is the bare minimum, and 8GB will likely be a new standard soon, thus gaming systems potentially requiring 16GB. You're still fine in this case, but let me explain..
Your system utilizes RAM in a specific way, prioritizing OS and core tasks over things like Skype, youtube, or video games. It also uses the first ~4GB of RAM for that (or so I believe). If you allocate over, say, 1-2GB of RAM to Minecraft, you can have system instability when it's trying to swap between the heavy load of Minecraft that occurs at times and core processes. It'll bog your system up quickly and throttle the hell out of your entire system, not just Minecraft, if not cause a crash or java memory leak.
What I'm not sure about is the RAM usage. It may use 4GB for core processes/etc., but I would assume that if you have at least 1 8/16GB stick, you would be perfectly fine for overhead. Why I'd be concerned is if all processes prioritize the first 2-4GB of RAM for this stuff and ignore your 4-12GB+ of RAM overhead, which I can't say is the case for sure.
Now, Java memory leaks are a big problem, regardless of how much RAM you have. It can cause problems even if you have 16GB+ of RAM installed. Minecraft is so prone to memory leaks that it's not remotely funny. If you allocated, say, 12GB of your 16 (leaving 6GB for other processes) to Minecraft and it had a memory leak, you might end up filling up a lot more of your memory than the program would normally allow, which would cause a lot of bad. Can't really explain it easily but that's the jist of it. Set yourself a MAX amount of RAM to Minecraft that is safe. 2GB-4GB allocated will provide more than enough than you would ever need or want, barring extremely high-res texture packs (512x512 to 2048x2048 res). I recommend going with a maximum of 2GB.
The main reason you're having an FPS limit:
You're running on an Intel core i7 (XXXX model, you never stated) processor, which is decent depending on which i7 it is. However, it's running off an iGPU on the motherboard and not a dedicated graphics card. Dedicated graphics cards allow you to have more available VRAM/Video RAM and a far superior graphics processor in most cases. The limit is not your processor here, it is entirely your GPU. There are definitely integrated/accelerated graphics processors that are capable of running games better than your processor, but you're way better off buying a graphics card than switching your entire system out.
What you can do to get better performance in Minecraft (hint: buy better hardware - don't need to read):
Look up the specs on your power supply to find out if it can support a video card. Look up a video card. Your case or motherboard may also be an issue but you can find compatibility specs somewhere pretty easily, if not look it up yourself.
The three cheapest options I can recommend are:
-AMD Radeon HD 7750 or 7770 (Both are somewhere in the $70-90 range for U.S.) - Go for Asus, Gigabyte MSi or XFX models from Amazon/Newegg/NCIX or similar . They're the cheapest good quality ones usually. Not that great of cards, and may be a step down from certain iGPUs.
-NVidia GTX 650ti (Somewhere between $110 and $135, depending on which version you get; 1GB/2GB model) - Same as above. EVGA 650ti's can be found for around the same price I think. This card is a rip-off. Much better than the 7770, but worse for it's price.
-AMD Radeon R7 260X ($135-140+) - Gigabyte or Asus for quality + price. This card only comes in 2GB VRAM models unless from a lower tier manufacturer. This is the fastest of the 3, the best price for it's quality. It is a very good card and would probably yield something like twice the FPS on high settings, perhaps max. The next option would be to get an R9 270 for roughly $180-190, or a 270X (slightly higher stock clock speeds) for $210. Same manufacturers. These 3 cards are easily the absolute best for the average consumer/pc gamer.
A 270 or 270X should be able to max most/any game at 1080p at playable FPS, including Battlefield 4. That may/may not include AA settings, but it's still far better than what you're capable on that processor. It shouldn't bottleneck due to the CPU if it's a low quality i7, but it's very likely it would bottleneck either R9 card.
Final consensus:
R7 260X + a Corsair 500W/430W power supply. Power supply will run you $20-40 (430W on Amazon) or $~30-50 (500W - If you can find it for sale). Total cost with separate shipping might be somewhere around $180-190 for the card + either PSU. Either PSU should support up to an R9 270X no problem, so don't worry about it not being enough. This is all assuming your power supply is crap/won't handle a graphics card (probably won't).
More FPS =/= smoother game. Make sure v-sync is off unless screen tearing is happening (you would know) because this will cause frame stutter or input lag sometimes. If you're on a 60hz monitor/display, the monitor will only show a maximum of 60 frames per second (because it's refreshing 60 times per second, max). 60FPS is perfectly fine. System instability, not enough bandwidth on your iGPU, etc. will all reduce performance and potentially cause stuttering/lag/etc. when playing.
There you have it, all the reasons why 60FPS is plenty and why you might be lagging. RAM does jack beyond 8GB for Minecraft, regardless of amount allocated above the normal 512/1024MB.
Why it causes system instability (not necessary to read, just a little heads up):
As stated previously, your system may use up to 4GB of RAM for most processes, but this includes stuff that runs in the background on top of your OS' basic processes. 4GB is the bare minimum, and 8GB will likely be a new standard soon, thus gaming systems potentially requiring 16GB. You're still fine in this case, but let me explain..
Your system utilizes RAM in a specific way, prioritizing OS and core tasks over things like Skype, youtube, or video games. It also uses the first ~4GB of RAM for that (or so I believe). If you allocate over, say, 1-2GB of RAM to Minecraft, you can have system instability when it's trying to swap between the heavy load of Minecraft that occurs at times and core processes. It'll bog your system up quickly and throttle the hell out of your entire system, not just Minecraft, if not cause a crash or java memory leak.
What I'm not sure about is the RAM usage. It may use 4GB for core processes/etc., but I would assume that if you have at least 1 8/16GB stick, you would be perfectly fine for overhead. Why I'd be concerned is if all processes prioritize the first 2-4GB of RAM for this stuff and ignore your 4-12GB+ of RAM overhead, which I can't say is the case for sure.
Now, Java memory leaks are a big problem, regardless of how much RAM you have. It can cause problems even if you have 16GB+ of RAM installed. Minecraft is so prone to memory leaks that it's not remotely funny. If you allocated, say, 12GB of your 16 (leaving 6GB for other processes) to Minecraft and it had a memory leak, you might end up filling up a lot more of your memory than the program would normally allow, which would cause a lot of bad. Can't really explain it easily but that's the jist of it. Set yourself a MAX amount of RAM to Minecraft that is safe. 2GB-4GB allocated will provide more than enough than you would ever need or want, barring extremely high-res texture packs (512x512 to 2048x2048 res). I recommend going with a maximum of 2GB.
Not sure what you have running on your computer, but I have no problems whatsoever running Windows 7 on 3 GB of RAM; even with Minecraft (512 MB allocated) and Firefox (another memory hog) running together, I barely push 2 GB of total system RAM usage. In fact, I can very well see somebody with just 2 GB of system RAM (the minimum Mojang recommends) running Minecraft without problems as long as they don't run other programs and allocate a more sensible 350-512 MB to Minecraft (350 MB is what Optifine recommends). Maybe even 1.5 GB with a lower render distance and a bare minimum memory allocation (even the new snapshots only require around 150-200 MB; my modded Forge-1.6.2 version averages around 250-300 MB).
Windows itself only requires about 600 MB based on what Task Manager says without any other programs running; if you really do need 2-4 GB of RAM just to run an idling computer I'd say that something is very wrong (FWIW I am also running 32 bit, so allocating more than about 1 GB to Minecraft isn't possible in any case as 32 bit processes are limited to 2 GB total, include the heap and memory for Java, OpenGL, etc, hence the Far render distance warning on 32 bit - though allocating less memory to the heap will avoid out of memory crashes - note that these crashes occur because the Java process runs out of RAM (as seen in Task Manager), not Minecraft itself, which claims to have plenty of free memory).
Also, note that Task Manager shows only a small amount of "free" memory but the real amount you can use is the "available" memory, as Windows will make the most of unused memory by caching files (you do want some left over, especially as Minecraft is constantly loading and saving chunks, but a few hundred MB should be enough).
Allocating more memory can be helpful but can cause system instability more often than it helps (at least in Windows). Windows requires a specific amount of RAM to run. Generally speaking, 4GB of most RAM will cover anything you'd need outside of gaming. Seeing as you have 16, you should be fine for games, regardless of it's quality.
Why it causes system instability (not necessary to read, just a little heads up):
As stated previously, your system may use up to 4GB of RAM for most processes, but this includes stuff that runs in the background on top of your OS' basic processes. 4GB is the bare minimum, and 8GB will likely be a new standard soon, thus gaming systems potentially requiring 16GB. You're still fine in this case, but let me explain..
Your system utilizes RAM in a specific way, prioritizing OS and core tasks over things like Skype, youtube, or video games. It also uses the first ~4GB of RAM for that (or so I believe). If you allocate over, say, 1-2GB of RAM to Minecraft, you can have system instability when it's trying to swap between the heavy load of Minecraft that occurs at times and core processes. It'll bog your system up quickly and throttle the hell out of your entire system, not just Minecraft, if not cause a crash or java memory leak.
What I'm not sure about is the RAM usage. It may use 4GB for core processes/etc., but I would assume that if you have at least 1 8/16GB stick, you would be perfectly fine for overhead. Why I'd be concerned is if all processes prioritize the first 2-4GB of RAM for this stuff and ignore your 4-12GB+ of RAM overhead, which I can't say is the case for sure.
Now, Java memory leaks are a big problem, regardless of how much RAM you have. It can cause problems even if you have 16GB+ of RAM installed. Minecraft is so prone to memory leaks that it's not remotely funny. If you allocated, say, 12GB of your 16 (leaving 6GB for other processes) to Minecraft and it had a memory leak, you might end up filling up a lot more of your memory than the program would normally allow, which would cause a lot of bad. Can't really explain it easily but that's the jist of it. Set yourself a MAX amount of RAM to Minecraft that is safe. 2GB-4GB allocated will provide more than enough than you would ever need or want, barring extremely high-res texture packs (512x512 to 2048x2048 res). I recommend going with a maximum of 2GB.
The main reason you're having an FPS limit:
You're running on an Intel core i7 (XXXX model, you never stated) processor, which is decent depending on which i7 it is. However, it's running off an iGPU on the motherboard and not a dedicated graphics card. Dedicated graphics cards allow you to have more available VRAM/Video RAM and a far superior graphics processor in most cases. The limit is not your processor here, it is entirely your GPU. There are definitely integrated/accelerated graphics processors that are capable of running games better than your processor, but you're way better off buying a graphics card than switching your entire system out.
What you can do to get better performance in Minecraft (hint: buy better hardware - don't need to read):
Look up the specs on your power supply to find out if it can support a video card. Look up a video card. Your case or motherboard may also be an issue but you can find compatibility specs somewhere pretty easily, if not look it up yourself.
The three cheapest options I can recommend are:
-AMD Radeon HD 7750 or 7770 (Both are somewhere in the $70-90 range for U.S.) - Go for Asus, Gigabyte MSi or XFX models from Amazon/Newegg/NCIX or similar . They're the cheapest good quality ones usually. Not that great of cards, and may be a step down from certain iGPUs.
-NVidia GTX 650ti (Somewhere between $110 and $135, depending on which version you get; 1GB/2GB model) - Same as above. EVGA 650ti's can be found for around the same price I think. This card is a rip-off. Much better than the 7770, but worse for it's price.
-AMD Radeon R7 260X ($135-140+) - Gigabyte or Asus for quality + price. This card only comes in 2GB VRAM models unless from a lower tier manufacturer. This is the fastest of the 3, the best price for it's quality. It is a very good card and would probably yield something like twice the FPS on high settings, perhaps max. The next option would be to get an R9 270 for roughly $180-190, or a 270X (slightly higher stock clock speeds) for $210. Same manufacturers. These 3 cards are easily the absolute best for the average consumer/pc gamer.
A 270 or 270X should be able to max most/any game at 1080p at playable FPS, including Battlefield 4. That may/may not include AA settings, but it's still far better than what you're capable on that processor. It shouldn't bottleneck due to the CPU if it's a low quality i7, but it's very likely it would bottleneck either R9 card.
Final consensus:
R7 260X + a Corsair 500W/430W power supply. Power supply will run you $20-40 (430W on Amazon) or $~30-50 (500W - If you can find it for sale). Total cost with separate shipping might be somewhere around $180-190 for the card + either PSU. Either PSU should support up to an R9 270X no problem, so don't worry about it not being enough. This is all assuming your power supply is crap/won't handle a graphics card (probably won't).
More FPS =/= smoother game. Make sure v-sync is off unless screen tearing is happening (you would know) because this will cause frame stutter or input lag sometimes. If you're on a 60hz monitor/display, the monitor will only show a maximum of 60 frames per second (because it's refreshing 60 times per second, max). 60FPS is perfectly fine. System instability, not enough bandwidth on your iGPU, etc. will all reduce performance and potentially cause stuttering/lag/etc. when playing.
There you have it, all the reasons why 60FPS is plenty and why you might be lagging. RAM does jack beyond 8GB for Minecraft, regardless of amount allocated above the normal 512/1024MB.
Thank you very much, Grave. Unfortunately my computer cannot support a graphics card , so I'll just get optifine and see how it goes. Thanks for the assistance though, and I will pass this on to some of my other friends who have this same problem.
Also, My chunks were like constantly reloading when I had 6gb allocated. Now that I allocated 600mb they aren't reloading and MC still runs fine! So thanks a bunch for your help!
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i have seen several postings of how to allocate more RAM to minecraft, and I have. First, a couple of specs:
Intel core i7
16gb RAM
Intel integrated graphics
Windows *(not sure if this is relevant, but just in case)
Toshiba Satellite s70 series
I have allocated 6GB of RAM to MC, changed max frame-rate, chunk limit, etc. And I cannot get above 60 fps. Yet what is strange is minecraft will accept the RAM, but not use it. (will insert ic once I figure out how to)
Used Memory: 17% (1001 MB) of 5888MB
Allocated Memory: 100% (5888MB)
Thank you for reading, and If you know any way to maybe force mc to accept more RAM or something like that, please comment!
If Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter were all destroyed, 90% of teens would go insane. If you're one of the 10% that would be laughing at them, copy & paste this into your signature and hope it happens.
Memory is used to store temporarily store data for quick write and read access
Memory is not a GPU.
Second off: GPU.
A GPU is basically the CPU of graphics
A GPU is not memory
Third off: The only reason why you should allocate more RAM
When you see your used memory is <90%, allocate more RAM to prevent lag spikes
Forth off: tl;dr
Memory saves lag spikes if needing more memory. More memory isn't helpful
Fifth off: Get a better graphics card
Intel HD graphics isn't good for gaming. Or anything, really.
If I helped you, whether it's a question or not, press the
Why it causes system instability (not necessary to read, just a little heads up):
As stated previously, your system may use up to 4GB of RAM for most processes, but this includes stuff that runs in the background on top of your OS' basic processes. 4GB is the bare minimum, and 8GB will likely be a new standard soon, thus gaming systems potentially requiring 16GB. You're still fine in this case, but let me explain..
Your system utilizes RAM in a specific way, prioritizing OS and core tasks over things like Skype, youtube, or video games. It also uses the first ~4GB of RAM for that (or so I believe). If you allocate over, say, 1-2GB of RAM to Minecraft, you can have system instability when it's trying to swap between the heavy load of Minecraft that occurs at times and core processes. It'll bog your system up quickly and throttle the hell out of your entire system, not just Minecraft, if not cause a crash or java memory leak.
What I'm not sure about is the RAM usage. It may use 4GB for core processes/etc., but I would assume that if you have at least 1 8/16GB stick, you would be perfectly fine for overhead. Why I'd be concerned is if all processes prioritize the first 2-4GB of RAM for this stuff and ignore your 4-12GB+ of RAM overhead, which I can't say is the case for sure.
Now, Java memory leaks are a big problem, regardless of how much RAM you have. It can cause problems even if you have 16GB+ of RAM installed. Minecraft is so prone to memory leaks that it's not remotely funny. If you allocated, say, 12GB of your 16 (leaving 6GB for other processes) to Minecraft and it had a memory leak, you might end up filling up a lot more of your memory than the program would normally allow, which would cause a lot of bad. Can't really explain it easily but that's the jist of it. Set yourself a MAX amount of RAM to Minecraft that is safe. 2GB-4GB allocated will provide more than enough than you would ever need or want, barring extremely high-res texture packs (512x512 to 2048x2048 res). I recommend going with a maximum of 2GB.
The main reason you're having an FPS limit:
You're running on an Intel core i7 (XXXX model, you never stated) processor, which is decent depending on which i7 it is. However, it's running off an iGPU on the motherboard and not a dedicated graphics card. Dedicated graphics cards allow you to have more available VRAM/Video RAM and a far superior graphics processor in most cases. The limit is not your processor here, it is entirely your GPU. There are definitely integrated/accelerated graphics processors that are capable of running games better than your processor, but you're way better off buying a graphics card than switching your entire system out.
What you can do to get better performance in Minecraft (hint: buy better hardware - don't need to read):
Look up the specs on your power supply to find out if it can support a video card. Look up a video card. Your case or motherboard may also be an issue but you can find compatibility specs somewhere pretty easily, if not look it up yourself.
The three cheapest options I can recommend are:
-AMD Radeon HD 7750 or 7770 (Both are somewhere in the $70-90 range for U.S.) - Go for Asus, Gigabyte MSi or XFX models from Amazon/Newegg/NCIX or similar . They're the cheapest good quality ones usually. Not that great of cards, and may be a step down from certain iGPUs.
-NVidia GTX 650ti (Somewhere between $110 and $135, depending on which version you get; 1GB/2GB model) - Same as above. EVGA 650ti's can be found for around the same price I think. This card is a rip-off. Much better than the 7770, but worse for it's price.
-AMD Radeon R7 260X ($135-140+) - Gigabyte or Asus for quality + price. This card only comes in 2GB VRAM models unless from a lower tier manufacturer. This is the fastest of the 3, the best price for it's quality. It is a very good card and would probably yield something like twice the FPS on high settings, perhaps max. The next option would be to get an R9 270 for roughly $180-190, or a 270X (slightly higher stock clock speeds) for $210. Same manufacturers. These 3 cards are easily the absolute best for the average consumer/pc gamer.
A 270 or 270X should be able to max most/any game at 1080p at playable FPS, including Battlefield 4. That may/may not include AA settings, but it's still far better than what you're capable on that processor. It shouldn't bottleneck due to the CPU if it's a low quality i7, but it's very likely it would bottleneck either R9 card.
Final consensus:
R7 260X + a Corsair 500W/430W power supply. Power supply will run you $20-40 (430W on Amazon) or $~30-50 (500W - If you can find it for sale). Total cost with separate shipping might be somewhere around $180-190 for the card + either PSU. Either PSU should support up to an R9 270X no problem, so don't worry about it not being enough. This is all assuming your power supply is crap/won't handle a graphics card (probably won't).
More FPS =/= smoother game. Make sure v-sync is off unless screen tearing is happening (you would know) because this will cause frame stutter or input lag sometimes. If you're on a 60hz monitor/display, the monitor will only show a maximum of 60 frames per second (because it's refreshing 60 times per second, max). 60FPS is perfectly fine. System instability, not enough bandwidth on your iGPU, etc. will all reduce performance and potentially cause stuttering/lag/etc. when playing.
There you have it, all the reasons why 60FPS is plenty and why you might be lagging. RAM does jack beyond 8GB for Minecraft, regardless of amount allocated above the normal 512/1024MB.
Happy gaming!
Not sure what you have running on your computer, but I have no problems whatsoever running Windows 7 on 3 GB of RAM; even with Minecraft (512 MB allocated) and Firefox (another memory hog) running together, I barely push 2 GB of total system RAM usage. In fact, I can very well see somebody with just 2 GB of system RAM (the minimum Mojang recommends) running Minecraft without problems as long as they don't run other programs and allocate a more sensible 350-512 MB to Minecraft (350 MB is what Optifine recommends). Maybe even 1.5 GB with a lower render distance and a bare minimum memory allocation (even the new snapshots only require around 150-200 MB; my modded Forge-1.6.2 version averages around 250-300 MB).
Windows itself only requires about 600 MB based on what Task Manager says without any other programs running; if you really do need 2-4 GB of RAM just to run an idling computer I'd say that something is very wrong (FWIW I am also running 32 bit, so allocating more than about 1 GB to Minecraft isn't possible in any case as 32 bit processes are limited to 2 GB total, include the heap and memory for Java, OpenGL, etc, hence the Far render distance warning on 32 bit - though allocating less memory to the heap will avoid out of memory crashes - note that these crashes occur because the Java process runs out of RAM (as seen in Task Manager), not Minecraft itself, which claims to have plenty of free memory).
Also, note that Task Manager shows only a small amount of "free" memory but the real amount you can use is the "available" memory, as Windows will make the most of unused memory by caching files (you do want some left over, especially as Minecraft is constantly loading and saving chunks, but a few hundred MB should be enough).
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
Testsi, you don't have to be an . I am trying to firgue out whats wrong. Go be a jerk to someone else.
Grave, how do I check power supply?
Also, My chunks were like constantly reloading when I had 6gb allocated. Now that I allocated 600mb they aren't reloading and MC still runs fine! So thanks a bunch for your help!