Xvid4PSP making Windows give Virtual Memory low message

[godfist314]

Granted, I only have 384 mb ram on a pentium 3 500 mhz, but I would think I wouldn' need that much ram to convert a dozen 30 min xvid mp4 files. And for the temporary files I'm using a drive with about 50 gigabytes free so that shouldn't be an issue. I have googled for some tips on getting rid of the Virtual Memory problem which I'll try tonight, but if that doesn't work, what can I do?

The error only seems to occur when I've converted more than 3 medium length files. I can convert in small batches if I have to, but I'd rather queue up 10 files to convert overnight. The last time I converted many files I came back in the morning and found that Xvid4PSP had closed itself and only 3 out of my 10 files had been converted. What can I do?

Thanks in advance for any help you can give. This is a marvelous site and a very helpful group of people on this forum and I appreciate it very much.

[poisondeathray]

Best way is to upgrade your physical memory. (i.e. buy more ram) DDR2 memory is dirt cheap right now.

You can also increase your virtual memory size (page file) since you have free HD space: right click my computer => advanced tab => performance settings => advanced tab => virtual memory press change => enter size and press set (you may have to reboot).

I suggest you do a custom size, say 4GB min and 4GB max. (keeping it the same size prevents windows constantly resizing and increases performance). Also defrag your HD once it's set to farther increase performance, since it will be frequently accessing your HD as virtual memory since your physical memory is so low

Cheers

[godfist314]

Best way is to upgrade your physical memory. (i.e. buy more ram) DDR2 memory is dirt cheap right now.

You can also increase your virtual memory size (page file) since you have free HD space: right click my computer => advanced tab => performance settings => advanced tab => virtual memory press change => enter size and press set (you may have to reboot).

I suggest you do a custom size, say 4GB min and 4GB max. (keeping it the same size prevents windows constantly resizing and increases performance). Also defrag your HD once it's set to farther increase performance, since it will be frequently accessing your HD as virtual memory since your physical memory is so low

Cheers

Wow, that was an amazingly fast response! I just posted this like 5 minutes ago. OK, thanks for the tip on increasing my Virutal memory page size. And yes I could try and upgrade my ram but that looks tricky from what I've seen and I dont even know if my 10+ year old motherboard could handle DDR2 ram. And then you have to get a wrist strap to avoid static shock and sometimes the wrist strap doesn't work and you shock your motherboard anyway...ack such a hassle, at least from what I've read anyway. Plus I have no way of knowing what exact brand and model of motherboard I have. Lol, sounds like I'm complaining a lot, but I think they're valid points...right?

[poisondeathray]

Yes, if it's that old, you are probably have DDR1 or even SDRAM...better to upgrade the whole system eventually. Give the page file settings a shot; 4GB should be enough, if not, increase it a bit more.

A P3-500Mhz is going to be painfully slow for all your video manipulations.

EDIT: IIRC, it was SDRAM (DDR1 wasn't introduced yet)

[godfist314]

Yes, if it's that old, you are probably have DDR1 or even SDRAM...better to upgrade the whole system eventually. Give the page file settings a shot; 4GB should be enough, if not, increase it a bit more.

A P3-500Mhz is going to be painfully slow for all your video manipulations.

EDIT: IIRC, it was SDRAM (DDR1 wsn't introduced yet)

Nah, it's not *that* slow actually. I can convert 856x480 H.264 AVI to XVID 640x360 in 2.5 hours with VirtualDub and *still* have enough processing power left over to watch a high resolution XVID video in KMPlayer (I set the thread priority to lower on Virtualdub).

Heck I wasn't even sure I'd be able to convert WMV HD 1280x720 files and one 20 minute file converted fine in a mere 1.5 hours (which you will note took less time than the 856x480 h264 file).

Anyway, I do want a better used comptuer for conversion, but what I have works fine for now. I leave my computer on overnight for video conversion all the time and it works great. But having a lack of ram makes my comptuer crash someitmes (especially now that I'm using Xvid4PSP), so I really want more RAM. But intolerably slow? Not for me.

[johns0]

The same file you encode in 1.5 hours can be now done in 5-10 minutes.