I've maxed out my RAM, cleaned out my system, Itunes STILL skips

I have a reasonably old PC (around 2002) that uses SDRAM and since filling all the available RAM blocks, it now has around 768mb. After much cleaning and squeezing as much RAM free as possible, resource hungry programs such as Firefox and Itunes still do not run optimally.

Firefox as it a browser is not that much of a worry, but as the plan is to use Itunes as the boom box at parties, is there any way of ensuring it does not skip and falter as it gets a work-out from everybody?

I had a look at Itunes-like programs but no other program can decipher the metadata I've entered using Itunes plus everybody is familiar with Itunes anyway.

Thanks!

 

Just wondering what tools you've used to clean out your PC?

 

Have you tried using foobar2000 as your audio player? It's very light-weight and highly customizable. It should be able to read your Metadata as well.

 

Hey,

foobar2000 as a matter of fact is the favourite program of the ones I'm looking at to replace Itunes and I have already dabbled in some of the extensions. I am frustrated with the good ones not working though and while most of the metadata is coming through, there are some that is not and I am unsure how much I know is missing and how much I don't know is missing.

The stuff I've used to clean up my PC (to optimise my RAM) include Disk Cleanup and Add/Remove Progs and CCleaner.

 

I replaced my itunes with winamp and dfx for winamp. Never looked back.


http://www.fxsound.com/dfx/pages/download/index.php

 

Hmm. Does your music still skip when using foobar? If it does then it might be your soundcard driver, this happened to me before. If not then I suggest a general clean up, stuff like defrag, Registry Cleanup (I suggest using EasyCleaner for this, CCleaner Registry Cleanup does tend to be quite harsh). Also anti-malware scans with Malwarebytes, SUPERAntispyware, and try out the Eset and F-Secure on-line scans. If these don't help then I guess the ultimate answer would be to buy more RAM or format your hard drive.

As for foobar reading the rest of the Metadata, foobar's got a very good IDv3 tag renaming utility which has excellent mass-alteration capabilites. Just choose what files you want to alter and right-click on them, choose 'Properties' and you'll be able to change the IDv3 tags.

 

I'm using foobar more and more and loving it, I have a metadata question - if I edit something in foobar, will Itunes ignore the change unless I tell it to re-add those songs to the Itunes library?

 

What should happen is when you've made your change to the Metadata of a song in foobar, when you go to iTunes and then play that song, if iTunes doesn't all ready have the information it'll update the Metadata automatically. But this'll mean having to click on every track that needs it's information updated, so it'd be best to just re-add them to the library.

Just a word of warning about foobar, I'm assuming you've got the latest version of it. If you try to apply some skins alot of the plugins needed to apply the skins will no longer work. This is especially true for a plugin named Panels_UI which is a rather extensively used plugin need to apply skins that isn't being updated anymore. If you do ever find yourself wanting to apply some of prettier skins (try deviantART) you'll have to downgrade (try this one, there's not really any huge differences between 0.9.5.2 and 0.9.5.6).

 

I'm pretty much swayed over now, I am still wanting to keep iTunes around though as my playlists and Ipod are all configured to it. Is it really safe to use foobar as my Ipod program?

 

I know there are iPod plugins for foobar but as I don't have an iPod I haven't tried these out. But they should be safe enough, they won't destroy your iPod or anything like that.

 

Hey thanks for all your help, can you recommend me some add-ons that will work with the version you linked me to - I have downloaded that one and would like to start applying skins/add-ons to it to emulate/improve over itunes.

 

I'd also recommend installing FreeRAM XP Pro 1.52 from http://majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=1670 if you haven't got a RAM amanger already installed.

One of the first programs I install on others PC's if I can. Used it for years.
Left doubleclick on the icon, down by the clock, to instantly free up all available RAM. I even use it on my XP Pro SP3 laptop with 2gigs RAM. Bazza

 

The skin I use at the moment is this. All the add-ons used to apply the skin are linked to in the txt file that comes with it. I'm a particularly big fan of this skin as it combines looks with not over doing it on the RAM side.

If it's a skin to make foobar2000 look like iTunes then try taking a look at some of these.

As for iPod compatability, then I suggest taking a look here.

If you're a Last.fm user then you can uninstall the scrobbler that Last.fm uses and place this in your components folder. All it does is scrobble what your listening to without having a entirely separate program to do it.

In terms of other add-ons there really isn't much to say, except that PanelsUI-based skins tend to be prettier but lack ease of use, unlike ColumnsUI-based skins. Though some skins like mogelbrod there implement both, though it's mostly designed for PanelsUI.

 

Try defragging your harddrive, as that can cause issues with music sometimes.

 

I'm bamboozled by all the ways foobar lets you do things, would the Itunes theme help me ease into it? I would like to use it as much as possible.

 

I'd say no, no it wouldn't. As most of the tweaking is done through the preferences having a skin probably won't make it any easier. The best way to go about it is searching for any plugins you think you might need to add functionality to foobar, install them and just having a bit of a play around with them in the preferences section.

 

While I've been using foobar regularly, Songbird has come into my radar - would that be a better alernative?

 

Though Songbird would seem more familiar to someone coming from iTunes it is extremely memory intensive.

 

Thanks for that.

I appreciate everything you guys have helped me with in this thread, really I do.