windows XP performance

[Bobby]

I have been having performance problems with my system
after playing several different games in XP. The games
play fairly well, but after closing out of them the
desktop redraws itself VERY slowly as does any App I try
to run afterward. it takes at least a minute for the
deskyop to redraw...and any application i pull up does the
same. D

 

[Bobby]

In addition, Dell's "award winning service and support"
led me through numerous regedits and reloads to no avail.
They claim its a problem with Windows
XP...a "compatibility" problem... anyone got any feedback
on this issue? It would be most appreciated.

 

[grahamilton]

This is normal on systems with low amount of RAM,

As you play your game if XP finds that you don't have enough free RAM for
the game. it will start to move data that's not needed from RAM to your
Virtual Memory (the page file), to free up more RAM for the game. this will
include, in your case, things like the desktop, any non-critical Operating
System stuff. so when you exit the game windows will have to retrieve any
needed data from the page file, since the page file is file on the hard disk
this can be a bit slow.

Installing more RAM would be your solution, but it you already have a
sufficient amout of RAM, say 512MB, then theres somthing that could be
eating up or your RAM.

In My Computer Properties > Advanced > Performance Settings > Advanced , in
Memory usage make sure its set to Programs instead of System cache.

How much RAM do you have, my cousin has only 192MB and sometimes this
happens to him after playing games.
Restart and check to see how much free RAM you have left over, task manager
will tell you this,