In the game, players must mine resources, explore a variety of biomes and dungeons, and defeat a progressive series of eldritch bosses. Terraria is a sandbox game, which means that players can do practically anything they want with absolute freedom.
Like most sandbox games, Terraria needs a lot of disk space to work at its best. To get the most out of your game, as well as to make it run properly, you may need to give Terraria more memory on your computer. But how are you supposed to do that?
Don’t worry, because we’ve got you covered. This guide will walk you through the steps to give Terraria more memory and get the best gaming experience possible. So let’s get started!
Why Do You Need To Give Terraria More Memory?
Before we get into how to allocate more memory to your game, you might be wondering why you need to in the first place.
When you play a game on your PC (or on any console for that matter) your game will be using the computer’s memory.
This is the temporary and permanent storage of your computer, and like on any other device you have a limited amount.
The memory of your computer is used up by all sorts of processes, including high volumes of files, completing multiple processes at once, and (of course) running games.
Many games use a lot of your computer’s memory while they’re running, and the game’s performance is affected by how much memory is available.
Games play better when you have more memory available on your system, and having extra memory set aside for your game will give you the best possible experience.
You might also come across the phrase “allocate more RAM” being used to describe this process. This means the exact same thing – RAM is the memory of your computer, so by allocating more of the RAM capacity to Terraria you’ll be able to get better performance.
Because of Terraria’s scope and sandbox design, it uses a lot of your computer’s memory while you’re playing. Allocating it more memory will let you get the best performance while you play, improving how it runs and reducing lag.
It also means that the game will be able to save, as it constantly updates while you play.
Having enough memory will keep the autosave running, which is especially important in multiplayer (which uses even more memory while you’re playing).
Extra memory is also useful if you’re playing with mods, as these make the game run more processes than intended and the game can crash if there isn’t enough disc space to run properly.
How Do You Give Terraria More Memory?
So with that aside, how do you actually assign more RAM to Terraria? This step-by-step guide will show you how.
Adding More Memory Through Task Manager
Open Terraria
First, you want to boot up Terraria. Don’t worry about launching anything in the game itself, but if you’re using mods with a separate launcher, boot these up as well.
Launch Task Manager
Next, you need to open Task Manager. There are a couple of ways you can do this, and they’re all really simple.
You can press the Windows key on your keyboard to bring up the search function (or command+spacebar on Mac), and from there type in ‘Task Manager’ and click on the icon that appears.
Alternatively, you can press control+shift+escape on a Windows computer, or command+alt+escape on a Mac. Finally, you can right-click on the taskbar at the bottom of the screen and click on ‘Task Manager’ from there.
If no stats and programs show up, you may need to click the ‘More Details’ option at the bottom to pull up the complete task manager.
Find Terraria In The List Of Apps
Now you need to find Terraria. You can either scroll through the list of applications until you find it, or search it at the top.
Right-click the program, and select ‘Go to details’ from the menu that pops up. This will open up a different window with more details about the game. Select Terraria again in this window.
Assign A Higher Priority To Terraria
Clicking on Terraria in the additional details window will open up another menu.
Select the ‘Set a Priority’ option from the menu. This will bring up a submenu; set the priority for Terraria to High and your system will allocate more RAM to the game.
Giving More Memory To Terraria Through Steam
Download tModLoader 64-bit and Launch Steam
If you have Terraria for Steam, you can allocate more memory there through an additional program called tModLoader.
Terraria is a 32-bit game, but you can convert it to a more powerful, 64-bit game by adding the 64-bit tModLoader.
Download the latest version for Terraria, and open Steam. From here you’ll be able to access the game files by right-clicking the title in the left-hand menu, hovering over ‘Manage’, and selecting ‘Browse Local Files’.
Unzip tModLoader
Now you need to unzip the newly-downloaded folder. You do this by right-clicking it and selecting ‘Unzip’ from the menu (easy enough). This will extract the files to an unzipped folder.
Alternatively, you can download an unzipped version of tModLoader to save yourself some hassle.
Merge The Files
From here, you should drag the unzipped tModLoader folder into the local files of Terraria. This will include them in the game data and launch them together.
Launch 64-bit Terraria From tModLoader
With this done, you can fire up tModLauncher. This will take a moment for the first time, so don’t worry if you need to wait a bit.
Here, you can open Terraria, which will now be running as a 64-bit game. This will allow you to allocate much more memory to the game and let you run it much more smoothly. tModLoader will also make it much easier to install mods into Terraria.
Final Thoughts
Giving a game like Terraria the memory it deserves will truly give you the best experience.
We all want our games to perform well while we’re playing them, and by following these simple instructions you’ll be able to start playing Terraria in ways you’ve never experienced before.
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