Tiny little lag hiccups in SM

[c117]

I've got a laptop with 256mb of RAM. Yes, I realize that's pretty low.

Anyway, when I'm playing stepmania or FFR (probably other games too but in those games a little spike doesn't matter) I often get tiny little lag skips. It's only a split second thing but it causes me to get a boo or miss, and this is what causes about 90% of my misses. Probably something like half my greats too -.-;

And occasionally, although this is rare, it just locks up for a second.

It's not that this computer can't handle the game... 1.5ghz, 64mb vram. Not a fantastic machine but more than enough for stepmania. I never run anything in the background while playing and I've tried playing at near-minimal settings but it scarcely affects the rate of this happening (if at all)

Anyway, my question is: would getting another 256 of RAM suddenly fix this problem? I want to upgrade anyway but laptop RAM is more expensive, stuff is more expensive in retail stores, and stuff is generally more expensive in Canada. The cheapest name-brand 256 I've been able to find is $80 CDN.

ps. Sorry if this is the wrong forum. Not sure if this might be better suited to Chit-Chat

[Suzuru]

I got lag spikes like that when my AIM had loggin turned on.
WHen I turned off.. fixed.

[c117]

Originally Posted by Suzuru

I got lag spikes like that when my AIM had loggin turned on.
WHen I turned off.. fixed.

I don't have AIM or anything else that's not a system process running when I play stepmania.

[lord_carbo]

Check here:

http://www.stepmania.com/wiki/Background_Applications

Make sure to close out everything, and then some. Close those little annoying things in your taskbar and reduce it as low as you can. That might clear out a few megabytes of RAM.