Ok, there's a lot of inaccuracies in the advice in this thread, so let's clear it up.

You need to look at where the conflict is. The most likely bottlenecks are as follows:

- Hard drive speed
- Memory and pagefile usage
- Processor usage
- Competing applications

iTunes has to stream data from the HDD into memory, and decode it/decompress it before it can be relayed to the audio drivers. This is very processor intensive, and iTunes 7 specifically is known for performance issues in the area of processor usage.

Your first mistake, in all honesty, is trying to play a highly processor intensive game at the same time as iTunes is doing all the above. Winamp may be lighter than iTunes, but it still has to do the same work essentially.

And twite, you need to check your facts. iTunes does not use 256MB of memory - that's ridiculous! Have you actually ever fired up iTunes and checked the process tab of your task manager? I guess not, or you would have seen that it uses at most 40MB. This is nowhere near enough to cripple a system. I have a production SQL server database with several millions of rows, 500+ tables and high throughput, and that just about runs to 256MB when stressed out.

The recommended requirements for iTunes says 256MB in the PC, not just for iTunes. To assume, as twite did, that "it probably won't take up all 256 Mbs, but it will be close" is ludicrous.

So it's unlikely to be memory, but you're onto something with Norton. Norton will scan any file accessed on your pc. This will include mp3 files. So, if you add "scanning for viruses" to the list of things your pc is doing when you play an mp3, you'll see that Norton can have a big effect on HDD speed and processor usage.

With that said, virus checking will only be an issue only when the file is accessed. And this will only manifest itself as a delay in starting the track, along with a decrease in the performance of your game. But you'll get this with any virus scanner, and although Norton is quite heavy, it's quite good at finding viruses, so what's your priority?

One solution could be to play your music, from CD, on a hi-fi system, and let your PC get on with maintaining a hi frame-rate in your game, instead. At least play the music on a lightweight audio app from a second CD drive in your PC (assuming the game needs a disk inserted).

I hope this clears things up. It's a shame that people make assumptions and don't check their figures before they post "advice" on these forums. They only make themselves look foolish, as to people who do know what they're talking about can spot them a mile away...

yeah thanks mate.
i nearly didnt check this thread again.

i did manage to improve matters quite a bit, but i'm always intersted in ways to get that extra 5% performance.

i considered a seperate hi-fi, but its a bit drastic to run down to Dixons purely for this issue.

not too sure what to do regarding pagefile, i will have a butchers.

any more suggestions welcome.

I'm sorry but i have to disagree with that!!

I have been helping out with malware removal here on TS and find norton to be literally a waste of space and resources!!

It's crap at finding anything! I have also had it on some pc's that i have personally sorted out, every single one of them, norton said it was clean. I used etrust antivirus, etrust pest patrol, and avg anti-spyware to clean them up and all programs reported over 100 problems on all the pc's.

My conclusion, after working on 15+ pc's with norton on them and also seeing 200+ hjt logs showing norton that it is absolutely useless at doing anything but slowing a pc down.

The evidence is damning and overwhelming!!

And if you want a player that's even lighter and more configurable....

foobar2000

http://www.foobar2000.org/

OK fair enough, you got me. I've not actually used Norton myself. I've heard of people with reliability issues, and others who swear by it. I use a combination of Avg, Zonealarm and Spybot myself. If you're categorically stating that Norton is rubbish, then I'll take your word on it. My point was that any virus scanner adds load to your pc in terms of disk, memory and processor usage. If Norton is particularly bad, then try something else, but they're all going to have an impact.

At the end of the day, if you have a fat useless plumber or a "normal" weight expert plumber in the back of your car, they're both going to affect the handling, but one might do a better job of your new bathroom.

well this may be too late on this thread, but I cant think of any reason anyone would use itunes unless they own an Ipod.

And IF you have an Ipod, couldnt you just plug your headphones/speakers into that and use 0% cpu and RAM and you wouldnt have to minimize to mess with volume or changing the song etc.

of course this is assuming you have an Ipod lol

yea I can see why that would be nice, but in a lot of my experiences with different media players I've noticed that most of them come with the "Add media/directory" option. Maybe I didn't understand what you were saying about sharing music idk.

BTW I tried out FOOBAR, one word...amazing. It's got all the guts with no extra frills. Its actually difficult to find it in my processes menu on account of not using much memory (which is a plus). So if you, like me, listen to musics while gaming and change the song/volume on KB/etc. , go and try out FOOBAR!

Wow, you are clueless. Here you are, a new member of this forum, and you come in acting like this? I didn't even bother to

finish reading your gibberish, the facts are, his computer is working much better. I only went by the assumption

that It says on the I tunes website that the minimum specs were 256 MB of ram.I am NOT going to download itunes, to

check how much memory it takes up. NOW that, my friend, is ludicrous. And if you have a problem with that, then

you can take it up with apple. Go ahead, sue them, yell at them, protest in front of their building, smash an ipod, but

whatever you do, i could care less. The fact of the matter is, Winamp is a lighter app, and norton sucks, and his

computer is

running better.


Wow, do i look cool because i bold words for exclamation?

Didn't think so.

Hello There!!!

I have been having problems with itunes...

my problem is that i cannot run itunes with any other program running - the playback just goes all skippy... even when i look through folders.
Now considering the specs of my pc, im pretty sure this may be a software problem... although i do have an 8000 song library... is this it?? lol
Anyone got any ideas???

If any of u guys cud help id be EXTEMELY greatfull!!! I'd love to use itunes when working and playing games like, im a CGD student!!

CHEEEEEEEERS!!!

sound... but all of my music and playlists are in itunes... thats why i wanna use it. its strange though, i mean itunes shudnt even take up a tenth of my ram or dual core processor power....

I might play around with importing [playlists to realplayer or winamp from itunes.

cheers for the advice though, realplayer plays fine whilst runninn multi apps!!