System Resources Dangerously Low <--- what is this?

[fragged]

I'm using Windows ME. I have a 1 GHz AMD Thunderbird and 256 mb of PC133 RAM with a 32MB ATI Video card and a 30Gig HD with about 25 Gigs free.

I get a message that states &quot;You are dangerously low on system resources&quot; whenever I view multiple videos on Windows Media Player 7.1.

Any ideas on why this happens? I obviously don't have too slow of a CPU or too little RAM...

 

[Mday]

yes you actually do have too little RAM.

winme = no memory management capabilities.

 

[rw120555]

I can't explain this very well. But, regardless of how much memory you have, you only have a limited amount of system resources (64K, 128K, something like that). Different programs will eat up system resources. Worse, even when you close those programs, resources may stay eaten up. You then have to reboot to regain those resources.

You can help yourself out a bit by limiting programs that run at startup to only those you really need, e.g. Winfax can use a lot of resources so often I don't run it. A program like PC mag's startup cop can let you have different startup configurations to meet your needs of the moment; for example, I use it to shut down all non-essential programs when I need the most memory and resources possible for some demanding task.

In your case, it sounds like you just can't get by with running too many videos at once.

I've heard that XP will be much better about handling system resources, and if so I may upgrade just for that reason alone.

 

[rw120555]

Here is how the Norton Utilities expains this:

In order to run applications, Windows requires free USER memory resources, GDI resources, and (for Windows 3.x applications) selectors. When these resources are exhausted, additional applications cannot be opened, and you receive out-of-memory errors. When USER resources are low, you should close any unnecessary applications to free up some memory.

Compared to Windows 3.x, later versions of Windows increase the availability of USER resources, in part by providing some of those resources through new, 32-bit code. However, many USER resources continue to be provided through the older, 16-bit code. Although this older code ensures compatibility for applications designed to run under Windows 3.x, it also retains a number of the limitations of the older operating system. Because every window and dialog box that gets displayed requires USER resources, they are still somewhat limited, especially if you run many 16-bit applications.

 

[Rostig]

You can make your system start faster, and get rid of this problem by running MSCONFIG. Go to START, RUN, then type MSCONFIG. Click the tab that says Startup. Then you can uncheck anything that you do not need. You only have to leave System Tray checked. I only have checked : TaskMonitor,SystemTray,LoadPowerProfile,the second LoadPowerProfile,and *StateMgr. I also have NvInitialize checked, but this is for my overclocked GeForce2, so you probably do not have it. With these things checked, my system resources are at about 95% when I start up. You can check what your system resources are by : right click My Computer, click Properties, then click the Performance tab. It will tell you your system resources there. Gutes Gl&uuml;ck.

 

[iamcanadian128]

windows media player (wmp) sucks up a lot of system resources, so i suggest, next tiem you view 1 movie/video @ a time!

 

[rw120555]

You have to be careful, though, because a lot of times you don't know what those startup programs are, and some of them may be things you like or need whether you realize it or not. In particular, you may want to be very careful about disabling your antivirus software (at least, don't disable it without knowing you've disabled it).

It is true, though, that you can probably disable a lot of junk and never even miss it. Or, there may be some things around that you only want occasionally. PC Mag's Startup Cop is a good utility for controlling what gets loaded at startup. You can have different configurations, and if you disable something you find you need, it is easy enough to get it back.

I must say it annoys me when programs load themselves into your startup, you can't find any documentation on what they do, and there is no straightforward way for disabling them other than through msconfig or startup cop or something similar.

 

[puppet]

You can also make use of a utility called &quot;cacheman&quot; to optimize memory usage. It works very well for me.
Make sure that you do not have too much memeory allocated to AGP aperture settings. Check your systems BIOS and set this to 64 mb if it isn't already.
Disabling start-up programs are just fine. Some must stay but the frills can be cut. If you need them you'll just be loading them as such.......they just won't be sitting in the tray ......waiting.

 

[Techwhore]

you could also move from ME to 2k and solve the problem... just a thought

 

[Shudder]

2k will solve your problem definitely.

Here's my suggestion. The player with WMP7 BLOWS. The exe alone is 300k compared to the 6.4 version wich was like 20k.

Go to your movie files, do &quot;open with&quot; and instead of picking the standard Windows Media Player, choose &quot;Media Player.&quot; It's the one that has the icon where people clip the lever down and say &quot;Action&quot; while making movies. THAT is the smaller version and doesn't have the fancy worthless skins like wmp7 has. That alone may help you out, plus that smaller version of media player is WAY nicer to work with. When you go to a website that has integrated media player videos in it, this is the player that runs, so it's gotta be small to be inetegrated with the browser. Go to the media player folder and you'll see what I'm talking about with the filesize difference. We're talking 10s of K verses 300K..