Yes, there is a setting for this.
If the client is going to be used for inventory only, then a very different set of settings should be in place for this use case. I have been meaning to create clientsettings.cfg and tasks to set what I think makes the most sense for an inventory only client.
I kind of have the opposite of this request here: An example clientsettings.cfg to set the default BigFix client settings at install time. Only works with the Windows EXE installer or the OS X installer. For linux, see here: https://github.com/jgstew/tools/blob/master/bash/install_bigfix.sh · GitHub
These are like recommended settings to make the client more aggressive on first provisioning.
The client should be set to delayed autostart which should prevent resources from being consumed at boot time until late in the process. If it is not set that way already, it can be with a task.
This setting will help address that significantly:
Power save enable tells the client to stop its eval loop for a time if nothing is changing, then start it up again after a delay. I believe the default delay is 10 minutes for when on AC power / fully charged battery, but it automatically increases the delay as the battery level decreases. This setting makes a big difference for laptop battery life as well as reducing idle CPU usage on VMs and Docker containers. I’m starting to think this should be enabled almost everywhere since it still allows the client to respond to incoming actions / notifications. I am starting to use this much more widely.
See this related post: Automatically adjust BESClient settings when on battery power
There are other settings I would use that are much more specific to the inventory only use case, but I need to take the time to enumerate them.