Here it is:

AMD Athlon 1000/ABIT mobo
Matrox Millenium G450
768Mb memory (512+128+128)
Windows2000Pro ServicePack3

Mainly used for editing, internet, photoshop, ...

Try lowering your screen resolution to 800x600x16 bit. Also Press CTRL + ALT + DEL to see how many programs and devices are running which may be hogging memory. For video capture and editing I only have Explorer and Systray running. It isn't even necessary to have the mouse configuration applet running (a real memory hog).
You can download a program called EndItALL which will shut down running programs for you or you can download and install RegCleaner which easily allow you to remove unwanted startup programs as you like. One really annoying software is Quicktime which always seems to demand to run as a task as do some Microsoft programs. Get them out of the startup sequence with RegCleaner.
Look under System Performance and see how much of your system resources are free when you start Windows. Should be at least 75% for good editing performance.
Also, Windows 2000 does a pretty good job of managing memory, so if you have specified your own virtual memory settings, you might want to let Windows manage them. And, of course always defrag.
The other issue would be the drive setup....ie: Where you store your clips, pre-rendered files, and the location of your temp files. Modifications to that scenario can speed up the process of data access.

John

great great great great... exactly the kind of answer I was looking for craftek: thanks a LOT !

Though I am using windoz 2000, with its "superior" memory management the default, and using the recommended multi-drive setup, and defraging, and all the other advice I find on this forum, I have concluded that there will ALWAYS be some memory slow down after rendering or prerendering, or after repeated RAM renders. I have found it so bothersome that every time I render or prerender a few times I then save and reboot. The following session is MUCH faster, then. The lost time in the reboot is easily regained in every other operation, until I render or prerender, again.

I have mentioned this on this forum a few times, and written to SoFo about it, but I hve never had a satisfactory explanation of how to avoid this. I have tried all kinds of OS changes, to no avail.

I have two very qualified techs on staff (I run 2 large computer education labs at LSU) who assure me that there is nothing at all about my software or hardware setups which would cause this. They have repeatedly tackled the problem, to no avail.

I just reboot.

Though I am using windoz 2000, with its "superior" memory management the default, and using the recommended multi-drive setup, and defraging, cutting "startup programs" to nothing, and all the other advice I find on this forum, I have concluded that there will ALWAYS be some memory slow down after rendering or prerendering, or after repeated RAM renders. I have found it so bothersome that every time I render or prerender a few times I then save and reboot. The following session is MUCH faster, then. The lost time in the reboot is easily regained in every other operation, until I render or prerender, again.

I have mentioned this on this forum a few times, and written to SoFo about it, but I hve never had a satisfactory explanation of how to avoid this. I have tried all kinds of OS changes, to no avail.

I have two very qualified techs on staff (I run 2 large computer education labs at LSU) who assure me that there is nothing at all about my software or hardware setups which would cause this. They have repeatedly tackled the problem, to no avail.

I just reboot.

I dump everything from my capture drive and defrag after every project. Seems to keep things moving along I have a amd 133mghz cpu and 512k memory running windows xp pro. I figure I get about 2 to one render time (2 min to render one minute of video) I am satisfied with this but will be looking at upgrading when everythign shakes out in the cpu market.

Bear> i REALLY wonder how you manage to run your system, if you only had 512k of memory you can barely run any OS except Dos and Linux ;-)

Besides, the CPU you have seems too be very slow...

Just to correct you, dont get me wrong tho, but it is some computer terms you should learn ;)

512MB (Mega Byte), if you uses K, it would bve equal to KiloByte, which i believe you dont have, right?

The CPU's doesnt operate at 133mghz, use the two following statements:
GHz - GigaHz
MHz - MegaHz.

futz:

I would really like to suggest a program if you have lots of problem with computer slowing down all the time. Even Windows 2k handle memory well, it seems that the MS-staff havnt done a perfect job, who can do a perfect job anyway? Everytime my computer slow down, either after surfing, gaming or video editing i run the program cacheman:
http://www.outertech.com/

It also have a feature that lets you recover lost memory, say that Windows fail to retrive all the used memory, you can use this program to fix this.

Frankie
Singapore

BTW: i uses Win2k, SP3 also