Quick RAM help please?

Question

I really want to play this game on my computer but it uses a lot of ram and most of the time my PC crashes. I can't buy anymore RAM till the new year so is there a way I could free up any existing ram on my PC that may be being used for something pointless?
I am running Windows XP I only have 256mb ram.

Answer 1

you are like most people you want things to work but do not want to pay for it . if you bought a car you would not buy one with only 3 wheels on it as you would not be able to drive it , that is why pc soft ware comes with minimum requirements

Answer 2

Windows XP Home or professional minimum memory requirements are 256 MB of RAM. So right out of the chute you are into what is know as the swap file. This is where your computer uses a portion of your HardDrive in the same manner that it uses RAM. The problem here is that the access rate is much slower and this causes your computer to run slower.
In addition to the OS, Windows XP in your case, you have all of your background processes which eat up even more of your system resources. You need to look in your task tray, the area by the clock and close any non-essential programs down. If you have Norton you may want to consider going with a more resource friendly anti virus program such as Windows Live One Care. If you want to see the STATS at any time for your system just hit the key combination: ctrl + alt + del
This brings up the task manager and you can select the performance tab to get a visual representation of your system resources. Also if you go to the processes tab you can see all the processes that are running on your computer right now. For instance I have 102 processes running and am using 6% of my CPU and 1.3GB of RAM. If I want to free some stuff up or I want to know what is using the most resources I click the column header that reads Mem Usage. This organizes the processes by how much memory they use. You can even kill a process that you don't want running from here, but be careful that you do not terminate a process that Windows needs to run. Unfortunately your computer is barely able to run the OS and anything on top of this will be very hard for your system to handle. Good luck!

Answer 3

you should press ctrl+alt+delete to look at task manager. these are all the jobs running in the background that use up ram. some of the processes need to be running e.g. "system" but you can close lots of stuff, especially ones ending in ".exe". definitely close any programmes youve got open like internet explorer. and you can make sure all the irrelevant stuff in the bottom-right hand corner is turned off. this should make it crash less, depending on how much youve got turned off (im not sure how many processes you need running on your pc.) but youll probably need more ram to run it, especially if its a new game, cos 256mb isnt much. maybe you could check the system requirements for the game and see if youre computers up to scratch? if not then even the people who made the game wouldnt expect it to run properly! hope this helps

Answer 4

Its k.. 256 is more than enough if u can manage your ram.i'l tell u some tips to free yor ram.

1.right click on 'my computer'
click on 'properties',
then click 'advanced' tab
then click 'settings' under 'performance' tab
and select 'adjust for best performance' under 'visual effects' tab
then 'apply'(dont click 'ok'). (this will free atleast 50% of yor ram)

then click on advanced tab (next to visual effects tab tat u r currently on) click on 'change' under 'virual memory'(last title) select 'custum size' set 'initial' to 512 and 'maximum' also to 512 click on 'set' then 'ok'. (this will manage your page file)


2.right click on desktop.
properties,
appearance,
effects.untick everything (all r useless.like fade effect).

3.You can also download these programs:

cacheman: to manage your swap file(read earlier posts to knw what it is) and memory.

http://www.download.com/Cacheman/3000-2248_4-10216523.html

reg mechanic:manage registry(ordered registry makes things faster)faster

http://www.pctools.com/registry-mechanic/?ref=google_rm

intel application accelerator: manage hard disk and applications.

http://www.download.com/Intel-Application-Accelerator/3000-2086_4-10163578.html?tag=lst-0-1

4.right click on the small icons on the extreme right lower corner and close them.DONOT CLOSE cacheman.u need to keep it running for it to work.
or remove the junk programs(useless pgms running under yor user name in task manager-ctrl+alt+del)

ps:
if u can compromise on the visual look of xp, u can get a lot of ram. u dont need the 'looks' of xp while playing the game anyway!

And i suggest buying a graphics card(if u dont have one yet,u can get good ones(agp 8x @256mb or pci-e @256mb) under Rs.4000) than buying ram if u r into gaming.coz the g-card will have 256mb ram included.

Answer 5

including a million gb will assist you run greater with out dropping velocity, yet your computer will run appropriate to an analogous. you will purely be conscious a difference once you're working a super type of stuff or working something source-huge like video games, video modifying, etc

Answer 6

Yes there is, if you have a picture on your desktop, change it to a flat colour, and turn off stuff you dont need like quick time etc.etc. all those things on your taskbar eat up ram, shut off as many as you can.

That should help a little.

Answer 7

Make sure you close any programs that are running. 256MB is not a lot at all. I suggest upgrading to at least 512MB when you can. That's about all you can do.