Too much memory usage?

[Ferny_dx]

I have been using MPC star for years and one bug that ive noticed for a while (at least on my computers) is that when i play .MKV files in succession or when i pause them and leave them paused for too long, my memory (RAM) usage goes to 99% and i have to restart the player because my computer gets extremely sluggish.

i havent noticed this on over formats since i don't really use others too much.

I have 2 GB RAM on Windows 7 1.86 Dual Core,

is this a known issue or is this my computer being dumb?

Edited April 15, 2012 by Ferny_dx (see edit history)

[Ferny_dx]

I have been using MPC star for years and one bug that ive noticed for a while (at least on my computers) is that when i play .MKV files in succession or when i pause them and leave them paused for too long, my memory (RAM) usage goes to 99% and i have to restart the player because my computer gets extremely sluggish.

i havent noticed this on over formats since i don't really use others too much.

I have 2 GB RAM on Windows 7 1.86 Dual Core,

is this a known issue or is this my computer being dumb?

this is maybe about 20 minutes later

Edited April 15, 2012 by Ferny_dx (see edit history)

[kluelos]

I do have to comment that 2 GB is really what I'd consider below the bare minimum for running Win7. It will *run* in that little, but just about anything you do will make the memory usage grow and grow, until the wee beastie is starveling. When you have a media player that's trying to buffer ahead -- in part because of that low memory -- it just gets worse.

As cheap as RAM is these days, you really should take that to 4 or 8 GB.

[The UnUsual Suspect]

I've noticed this in many players when playing high definition video. I usually restart the player to clear it's buffer. It's a constant balancing act to try to read the data from the harddrive, holding it in ram just long enough, and reading ahead so you have the data in ram and ready to play when the player calls for it. Then when you run out of ram, you begin to use virtual memory that puts the data back on the harddrive... and you get playback issues. More ram would be best, but if you cannot upgrade, then shut down the player when it's not being used, or shut down other apps while playing. This should improve your performance.

[Ferny_dx]

I do have to comment that 2 GB is really what I'd consider below the bare minimum for running Win7. It will *run* in that little, but just about anything you do will make the memory usage grow and grow, until the wee beastie is starveling. When you have a media player that's trying to buffer ahead -- in part because of that low memory -- it just gets worse.

As cheap as RAM is these days, you really should take that to 4 or 8 GB.

Well yeah i guess i should, its just that i never really payed attention to memory issues till recently i mostly use this laptop for word processing and internet.

I've noticed this in many players when playing high definition video. I usually restart the player to clear it's buffer. It's a constant balancing act to try to read the data from the harddrive, holding it in ram just long enough, and reading ahead so you have the data in ram and ready to play when the player calls for it. Then when you run out of ram, you begin to use virtual memory that puts the data back on the harddrive... and you get playback issues. More ram would be best, but if you cannot upgrade, then shut down the player when it's not being used, or shut down other apps while playing. This should improve your performance.

I think i will try to get some new RAM soon, but just as a side note when i run out of RAM the player crashes every time, so maybe my VM isn't protocols aren't working right :\ i don't know just heads up if there's a glitch there,

but yeah im going the hardware route I don't think its necessary for me to dig through this and debug since this is probably pretty rare

thanks you guys