How Enable the Ram Limiter in Microsoft Edge (Resource Controls)

In this post, we will see how to enable the Ram Limiter feature of Resource Controls in the Edge browser. It allows you to limit the amount of memory the browser can use when you gaming (or all the time). The feature has been announced officially, but is still comes to users gradually.

The new Ram Limiter feature, part of Resource Controls, offers the ability to control the amount of RAM used by the browser, when you play a game. If the browser detects a game, it releases the memory above the specified cap by suspending tabs, unloading scripts, media and so on.

Such optimizations allows decreasing PC resources' strain. You can pick out a minimum of 1 GB for the Edge browser, with the option to increase in 1 GB increments. Moreover, you can enable the same memory limit for the default browsing mode, and not only when you run games.

However, the Redmond firm warns that setting the limit too low may negatively impact browser performance, causing it to slow down. When Edge reaches the specified limit, it will attempt to decrease memory usage, resulting in unexpected page refreshes and unwanted tab hibernation.

As mentioned in the beginning of the post, Microsoft is rolling out the RAM limiter gradually, so not everyone is seeing it right away. But there is a special command line argument that you can use to speed up the feature appearance in your Edge.

💡 You may already have the Resource Controls option in Edge settings (edge://settings/system) on the System and performance page. In this case, safely start with the step 7 of the guide below and ignore everything before.

Here's how.

Enable RAM Limiter in Edge

To turn on the RAM limiter in Resource Controls on Microsoft Edge, do the following.

1.  Launch Edge, and opens its Menu > Settings.
2. In settings, go to System & performance, and disable the Startup Boost option.
3. Now, close the Edge browser, right-click its desktop shortcut, and select Properties.
4. On the shortcut tab in the Properties window, click in the Target box, and type --enable-features=msEdgeResourceControlsRamLimiter right after the msedge.exe portion. You will get path\msegde.exe --enable-features=msEdgeResourceControlsRamLimiter.
5. Click Apply and OK. If you see the additional permission confirmation request, then click Continue.
6. Launch Microsoft Edge using the modified shortcut.
7. Again navigate its settings > system and performance page.
8. Under the Optimize performance section on the right, you now have the new Resource Controls option. Enable it.
9. Under Choose when to control resources, pick either Always or When you're PC gaming for what suits you best.
10. Finally, under Control how much RAM Edge can use, set the desired amount of available memory.

You are done!

Postscript

1️⃣ We had to disable the Startup Boost option to make the enable-features argument work. Otherwise, the Edge browser will remain running in the background (for faster start) and will spawn new instances from that background processes. The new windows will ignore most of the command line arguments specified via the shortcut.

2️⃣ If you need to specify more than one enable-features argument, specify them separated by a comma. You will find more details about this in the linked tutorial.

Thanks to HotCakeX for the tip.

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