You’re lagging. Your frames are dropping faster than a gravel block in a ravine, and you’re convinced that if you could just allocate more RAM to Minecraft Bedrock, everything would be buttery smooth. It makes sense, right? More memory equals more power. That’s how it works in the Java Edition, where you just hop into the installations tab, mess with the JVM arguments, and suddenly you’ve given the game 8GB of room to breathe. But Bedrock is a different beast entirely.
Honestly, the way Bedrock handles memory is kinda genius, but also incredibly frustrating for power users. Unlike Java, which runs on a Virtual Machine that needs to be told exactly how much memory it can "eat," Bedrock is written in C++. It’s native. It’s built to be efficient on everything from a high-end RTX 4090 rig to a dusty iPhone 8. Because of this, the game uses what it needs when it needs it. It scales.
Why you can't find a RAM slider in Bedrock
If you've spent an hour digging through the settings menu looking for a memory toggle, stop. It isn't there. You won't find it.
Bedrock Edition—which includes the versions on Windows 10/11, Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, and mobile—uses dynamic memory allocation. This means the operating system and the game have a little chat behind the scenes. The game says, "Hey, I need a bit more for these 32 chunks I'm rendering," and the OS gives it. If the OS is low on memory because you have sixty Chrome tabs open, it tells Minecraft to pipe down.
This is the fundamental reason why the advice to "allocate more RAM to Minecraft Bedrock" often leads to a dead end. You aren't managing a Java heap; you're managing system resources.
The hardware bottleneck myth
Most players think RAM is the silver bullet for performance. It's usually not. If you have 16GB of system RAM, Minecraft Bedrock is likely already taking everything it wants. Giving it "more" wouldn't actually do anything because the game's engine, RenderDragon, is more concerned with your GPU and CPU single-core clock speeds.
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I’ve seen people with 64GB of RAM wondering why their game stutters. The reality? It’s probably a tick-sync issue or a slow drive. Bedrock is hyper-optimized. It's designed to run on a phone with 2GB of RAM. If you're on a PC, you're already giving it a luxury suite compared to its minimum requirements.
How to actually "Force" better memory usage
While you can't type -Xmx4G into a console and call it a day, there are ways to influence how much memory Bedrock utilizes. It’s more about removing the ceiling than it is about pushing the floor up.
High Performance Mode in Windows
Windows loves to throttle background apps. To ensure Bedrock gets priority access to your system's memory and processing power, you have to tell Windows that Minecraft is a "High Performance" application.
- Hit the Windows Key and type Graphics Settings.
- Find Minecraft in the list of apps (you might need to select "Microsoft Store app" from the dropdown).
- Click Options and select High Performance.
This doesn't "allocate" RAM in the traditional sense, but it prevents Windows from putting the game's memory process into a "suspended" or "low power" state. It’s basically telling your PC, "Give this game the keys to the house."
The "Virtual Memory" trick
If you’re on a lower-end PC and Minecraft is crashing because of "out of memory" errors, the problem might be your Page File. This is "fake" RAM that your computer creates on your hard drive or SSD.
Go to your System Properties, then Advanced, then Performance Settings. Under the Advanced tab, you’ll see Virtual Memory. If this is set too low, Bedrock might crash when it tries to scale up. Setting this to "System Managed" is usually best, but some players swear by setting a custom size that is 1.5x their physical RAM.
Modifying the Options.txt (The "Pro" move)
There is a file buried in your AppData folder called options.txt. It’s the DNA of your Minecraft settings.
Find it here:%LocalAppData%\Packages\Microsoft.MinecraftUWP_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalState\games\com.mojang\minecraftpe\
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Inside, you'll see a setting for gfx_max_view_distance. This is the biggest memory hog in the game. Bedrock limits your render distance based on what it thinks your hardware can handle. By manually bumping this number, you force the game to load more chunks into the RAM. It’s the closest thing to "allocating" more memory because you are literally demanding the game store more data in the active memory.
Be careful, though. Set this too high and you won't just lag; you'll crash to desktop before the menu even loads.
The Dedicated Server exception
Now, if you are running a Bedrock Dedicated Server (BDS) on your own hardware, the rules change. Sorta.
Even the standalone server software for Bedrock doesn't have a specific "RAM limit" flag like the Java server.jar does. It’s still C++. It’s still dynamic. However, the server’s performance is heavily tied to the view-distance and tick-distance settings in the server.properties file.
If you want the server to use more RAM to handle more players, you increase the tick-distance. A tick distance of 4 is standard. Bumping it to 8 or 10 will significantly increase the memory footprint of the server because it's processing more of the world at once.
Is 32-bit vs 64-bit still a thing?
Back in the day, if you were on a 32-bit operating system, you were capped at 4GB of RAM for everything. It was a nightmare. In 2026, almost everyone is on 64-bit. If you are somehow still running a 32-bit version of Windows, you literally cannot allocate more RAM to Minecraft Bedrock. You are hit by a hard architectural ceiling. Upgrading your OS is the only fix there.
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Real-world performance bottlenecks
I talked to a few guys who run massive Bedrock realms and technical servers. They all say the same thing: it's rarely the RAM.
- Entities: Too many chickens in a 1x1 hole will kill your performance regardless of how much RAM you have.
- Storage Speed: If you're playing on an old HDD, the game stutters while trying to swap data from the drive to the RAM. An SSD is a better "RAM upgrade" than actual RAM for Bedrock.
- Thermal Throttling: Especially on laptops and mobile. If your device gets hot, it slows down the memory bus.
The "Add-on" Impact
If you’re using heavy Resource Packs or Behavior Packs (Bedrock's version of mods), these do increase RAM usage. High-resolution textures (128x128 or 256x256) need to be stored in your GPU's VRAM and your system's RAM.
If you want to "use" more of your PC's power, try installing a high-end shader pack or a 4K texture pack. This forces the game to utilize the resources you have sitting idle.
Why Mojang doesn't give us a slider
Mojang’s philosophy with Bedrock is "it just works." They want a kid on an iPad to have the same core experience as someone on a liquid-cooled PC. By hiding memory management, they prevent users from "over-allocating"—which is a common problem in Java. If you give Java Minecraft 16GB of RAM but the game only needs 2GB, the "Garbage Collector" (the thing that cleans up old data) has to work much harder, causing massive lag spikes.
Bedrock avoids this by being lean. It's a scalpel, not a sledgehammer.
Actionable Steps for Better Performance
Since you can't just slide a bar to 8GB, do these things to ensure Minecraft Bedrock is utilizing your hardware correctly:
- Close Chrome and Discord: These apps are memory vampires. If they are eating 4GB of RAM, Bedrock might decide to play it safe and limit its own consumption.
- Update Graphics Drivers: RenderDragon (the engine) relies on your GPU. Old drivers mean inefficient memory addressing.
- Use an SSD: Ensure your game is installed on an NVMe or SATA SSD. The speed at which Bedrock can move data into the RAM is more important than the amount of RAM available.
- Adjust Tick Distance: In your world settings, set your tick distance to 4 or 6. This is the "sweet spot" for performance.
- Check for Windows Updates: Specifically, look for "Optional Updates" that might include system architecture improvements.
If you've done all that and the game still feels slow, it's not a RAM issue. You might be hitting the limits of your CPU's single-core performance or your GPU's fill rate. Bedrock is incredibly well-optimized, so if it's lagging, there's usually a specific "world-side" reason—like a massive redstone machine or a corrupt chunk—rather than a lack of memory.
Stop looking for the RAM slider. It's a ghost. Focus on cleaning up your background processes and making sure Windows sees Minecraft as the priority it is. Your frame rate will thank you more than a fake memory boost ever would.