memory settings to avoid crashes?

[ozzie]

I experienced a lot of crashes initially with CM that I tried fixing by different drivers, etc. I finally got "EndItAll" and used it to stop ALL but the most necessary background programs. I still have crashes now and then with even one or two background programs running. I wonder if my memory settings could be optimized. I have 128 M of memory. I installed FreeMem to moniter my memory usage and see my memory go from 64 down to 10 for inexplicable reasons. I heard someone mention "memory leaking" before.

What is that? What (if any) are the optimal designated memory settings for this game?

[Schrullenhaft]

Memory leaks are an artifact of computer programming. If a programmer isn't careful with their code, there are situations where their program can start filling up available memory. So a program could be running and during the course of normal operations it could start taking more and more memory from the system because it doesn't "clean up after itself".

As for "optimal" memory settings, I'm not sure what you can change to make CM run crashless. Most of the "hardware" settings for memory timing are set in the CMOS/BIOS setup. Running these timings at a lower setting makes the computer faster, but possibly less stable. However by "de-tuning" these settings there is no guarantee that your crashes would go away (and your computer might be noticeably slower to boot).

Memory usage is between the OS, the programs you run and the drivers you load up for your hardware. The wild fluctuations in memory usage you're seeing with FreeMem may just be the normal Windows functions. Windows 9x pretty much requires virtual memory (disk space) to run and this is one of the few settings you can change. I wouldn't suspect that your problem is due to virtual memory however. I'm a bit clueless as to what to recommend for a swap-file size (this is usually automatically sized by Windows). You may want to experiment with 100 - 400Mb sized swap file (run Scandisk and Defrag before creating this permanent swap file).