Tech News Today
  • Hardware
    • Motherboards
    • CPUs
    • Graphic Cards
    • RAM
    • SSDs
    • Computer Cases
    • Monitors
    • Peripherals
    • Power Supply Unit
    • PC Builds
    • Computer Tips
  • Software
  • Operating System
    • Windows
    • Mac
    • Linux
  • Gaming
  • Mobile
  • Console
  • More
    • Internet
    • Networking
    • Security
    • Buyer’s Guide
    • Gadgets
    • Laptops
    • Reviews
    • How To
    • News
Facebook Twitter Instagram
Tech News Today
  • Hardware
    • Motherboards
    • CPUs
    • Graphic Cards
    • RAM
    • SSDs
    • Computer Cases
    • Monitors
    • Peripherals
    • Power Supply Unit
    • PC Builds
    • Computer Tips
  • Software
  • Operating System
    • Windows
    • Mac
    • Linux
  • Gaming
  • Mobile
  • Console
  • More
    • Internet
    • Networking
    • Security
    • Buyer’s Guide
    • Gadgets
    • Laptops
    • Reviews
    • How To
    • News
Tech News Today
Home»Hardware»RAM»How to Allocate More RAM to a Game

How to Allocate More RAM to a Game

NizzBy NizzNovember 4, 2022
How to Allocate More RAM to a Game

If a game doesn’t get to use the right amount of RAM, it lags. You may also experience issues like a black screen or sudden crashes in the middle of your gameplay. In such a case, you will definitely want to allocate more RAM to the desired game.

But Windows lets the dynamic memory be freely used by any applications/games. So, it isn’t necessary to allocate RAM specifically for a game from users, and neither will you find any specific settings to allocate a certain amount of RAM for any game. 

However, there are some settings you can tweak to ensure more memory is used by the desired application.

Table of Contents

  • How to Allocate More RAM?
    • Specific Game Settings
    • Allocate Disk Cache
    • End Unnecessary task
    • Halt Startup Applications
    • Prioritize from Task Manager
  • Should I Allocate More RAM to a Game?

How to Allocate More RAM?

Before moving on to play with the settings, you can try to close other applications. It will help the RAM, CPU, and GPU focus on your game rather than diverge resources.

Then, you can proceed to the listed methods to optimize RAM usage for your game:

Specific Game Settings

All the games are programmed to take a definite amount of memory at an instance to run smoothly. Most of them would automatically use the required amount of RAM. But depending upon the game you are playing or the app you are using, you may have the privilege to increase the RAM occupancy.

Some applications will provide such a feature within their toolbars, majorly in the Edit tab. There, memory settings can be manually set under the given limits.

allocate more ram 2

But for other Games/Applications, there may be not-so-simple specific procedures, which you will be able to find out by searching on the Internet.

Moreover, games consist of other settings to tweak, like render quality, resolution, fps, etc. If you increase the values of such settings, games will automatically utilize more amount of resources.

Allocate Disk Cache

Except for the direct RAM allocation, you can allocate a certain portion of your RAM or hard disk to act as cache memory for your game. This will help to load the game files faster by keeping them temporarily ready. You can follow the steps below to allocate disk cache size for your game:

  1. Right-click on the desktop icon of your game and choose Properties.
    game-properties
  2. Go to the Shortcut tab.
  3. Add -disk-cache-size=<value> within the Target text field at the last of the Path target without any space.
    The value should be in bytes, so if you want to allocate around 1GB of disk cache to your game, replace ‘<value>’ with 1 followed by 9 zeros. Example:
    -disk-cache-size=1000000000
    disk-cache-size
  4. Click on Apply and then OK.
Note: Manually playing with this configuration is likely to cause instabilities for your application.

End Unnecessary task

Other than that, you can end all the unnecessary tasks running in your background. These tasks tend to take up RAM and CPU, causing their actual capacity to limit.

Though prioritizing the desired games will allocate resources over those background processes, ending the unwanted tasks will always help to optimize performance.

You can follow the steps to end tasks from Task Manager:

  1. Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open Task Manager.
  2. Within the Processes tab, right-click on the process/application you want to stop and choose End task.
    end-task
  3. Do the same with other unnecessary processes.

Halt Startup Applications

Now, even if you stop the background processes once, some will start after rebooting. It is because such processes have been enabled with permissions to startup automatically. It is mundane to end such processes each time from the task Manager, rather, you can disable them from starting automatically.

Follow the steps mentioned below to disable them:

  1. Again, open the Task Manager and go to the Startup tab.
    startup-tab
  2. Right-click on the process and click Disable.
    disable-startup-app
  3. Repeat the same with the unwanted startup process.

Prioritize from Task Manager

Windows Task Manager lets you prioritize processes with more resources. Though it is not any direct or specific allocation of RAM, it will let the process prioritize within the CPU. Due to this, the application is likely to get priority in RAM holding as well during conflicting scenarios. 

To prioritize a game, you will have to follow the given steps:

  1. Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open Task Manager.
  2. Go to the Details tab.
  3. Right-click on the desired game, and choose High from Set priority. 
    set-priority-to-high

(Realtime priority shouldn’t be set, as it will imbalance other processes queued to the CPU) 

  1. Hit on the Change priority button.
    change-priority

You will also have to change the priority of the other processes related to that game.

Should I Allocate More RAM to a Game?

As mentioned earlier, no Windows settings will provide you with the settings to allocate RAM to a game. But even if in-game settings let you do so, you shouldn’t be proactively doing it. It is because allocating extensive memory to some games will hamper the operations of other mandatory processes. 

So, depending upon your physical capacity of RAM sticks, you can allocate it to a certain application. With a higher amount of physical memory and a suitable amount of memory assignment, you will face fewer problems. Or, you may have to increase your RAM capacity physically.

Moreover, if you are experiencing slow gameplay, there might be issues other than the RAM allocation. More often, problems in gameplay are the result of a faulty GPU. May it be hardware inabilities or some other configuration issues, GPUs are the major causes of laggy gameplay, poor quality, FPS jumps, screen tearing, etc.

Or the processing part, the CPU can cause issues if it is being extensively used without a proper cooling system. Moreover, the required specs for the game you’re playing can be checked on their official documentation. Unmet requirements can’t be fixed without hardware upgrades.

Consider upgrading your hardware if their specs turned out to be the weak links in your smooth gameplay experience.

how-to
Nizz

Nizz is a self-learning web developer and a keen follower of all things tech. He has always been fascinated by the latest gadgets and innovations, and loves to keep up with the latest trends.

Related Posts

difference-between-static-and-dynamic-ram

What’s the Difference Between Static and Dynamic RAM

January 5, 2023
ram-slot-not-working

RAM Slot Not Working on My Motherboard – How to Fix it?

December 7, 2022
How-to-Test-RAM

How to Test RAM for Error on Windows

December 1, 2022
how to clear ram cache

How to Clear Ram Cache on Windows

November 24, 2022
how-to-install-ram-on-pc

How to Install RAM on a PC

November 2, 2022
How to Clean a RAM Stick

3 Ways How to Clean a RAM Stick

October 21, 2022
Add A Comment

Leave A Reply Cancel Reply

Latest Posts
usb a vs usb c

USB A Vs USB C – What’s the Difference?

January 31, 2023
how long does a cmos battery last

How Long Does a CMOS Battery Last

January 25, 2023
thunderbolt vs usb c

Thunderbolt Vs USB C: What’s the Difference

January 25, 2023
You may also like
scroll wheel not working

Scroll Wheel Not Working? Try These 6 Fixes

February 5, 2023
how to connect canon printer to laptop

How to Connect Canon Printer to Laptop

February 5, 2023
how to change mouse sensitivity

How to Change Mouse Sensitivity (5 Effective Ways)

February 5, 2023
Recommended
Cookie Clicker Garden Guide

Cookie Clicker Garden Guide to Unlocking Every Seed

September 26, 2021
monitor no signal

Computer Turns On But Monitor Says No Signal (9 Ways To Fix)

November 10, 2022
Facebook Twitter Pinterest
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Our Team
  • Editorial Guidelines
  • Privacy Policy
  • Affiliate Disclosure
© 2023 TechNewsToday.

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.