[Rickie]

My computer isn't the best, and it's in the process of wearing down. With 256 MB, it struggles to run Firefox, Pidgin and iTunes. As much as I love iTunes, I need something else.


But I'm particular. I would like one that's obviously, very lightweight, doesn't have to look great, but minimize to the taskbar, good sound with an equalizer would be nice and the ability to perhaps import my iTunes library file.


From anyone's knowledge, does any player fit these?

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Why not just buy some more memory? Get far better performance out of the entire system that way.

[Neil Jones]

Why not just buy some more memory? Get far better performance out of the entire system that way.

[Rickie]

A little matter of being poor pretty much. x3; I can't afford to go upgrading the computer just yet, so that's why I just want to try and limit my memory usage a bit until then.

[Neil Jones]

But ITunes, Firefox, Pidgin and Windows generally is using all of your 256Mb of memory. It doesn't matter how light this new audio software you find is, it'll still drag the performance of the computer down because there isn't enough room in memory to hold it. Its the lack of memory that is the problem here, not what programs you're using.

[Rickie]

Until recently it's been able to handle it. Pidgin uses very little memory by the way, even less when it's minimized, which it usually is.

But I agree about Firefox and iTunes of course. And Windows...I really need to start again on this computer as it's gotten hellishly sluggish recently[takes up to a minute for a context menu to appear or to open a folder] but I don't really have the time or effort.

For now, I'm using an audio player called Billy. Very, very minimal so small RAM usage. Suits me fine. I was able to import all my iTunes stuff as well, so I'm fine with it for now I guess.

[texasbuc]

Until recently it's been able to handle it. Pidgin uses very little memory by the way, even less when it's minimized, which it usually is.

But I agree about Firefox and iTunes of course. And Windows...I really need to start again on this computer as it's gotten hellishly sluggish recently[takes up to a minute for a context menu to appear or to open a folder] but I don't really have the time or effort.

Have you checked for viruses/spyware recently? Defragged your hard drive? You say that it was running faster before, and the time it's taking to open a context menu means that something is very wrong.

[Rickie]

I defragged a coupla months ago and checked for viruses/spyware/adware and malware last week I think. Despite that, there was no change. I figure it's just 'cause Windows XP is being a jerk and that I need to wipe it and start again. I would if I had an external drive to back things up first, otherwise, too much hassle to burn all the DVDs. [Especially if you look at one of my past topics on this forum about my burner..]

Meh.

[Mike]

WINAMP seems to be the favorite of a lot of people. You should update to Firefox beta 3 since it is said to have better memory management and you will need it with only 256 MB ram

[happyrock]

ram is really cheap now...although windows will run with 256...it wil struggle at best and hang or get so slow as to be unusable...512 should be considered the minimum when running xp...
you can get sticks of 512 for around $20.00

[Rickie]

Yeah, Winamp's alright...but I find it's memory usage climbs a fair bit. xD; Billy works fine for me. ^-^

And yeah, believe me...I know. 256 is abysmal. Almost everything these days says 512 as minimum, which makes me sad. *shot* We'll see, might pick some RAM up cheap somewhere.