Low-resource programs for slow computers (Win)
 

I thought it might be useful to compile a list of programs noted for their low CPU usage or small memory footprint. I might be getting a used Fujitsu Lifebook P1120 soon, and it'd be nice to be prepared.

To start:
For music playback, I've always heard that foobar2000 is by far the most efficient program.

For video, the ffdshow decoder with Media Player Classic.

Coolplayer is also a well known low resource player. I'm stuck with winamp since make my own skins and I need a certain plugin no other player supports

Well first of all, Windows XP is NOT on that list, lol. Might want to use w98.

Oh please no...

I must disagree. You want low resource windows OS get windows 2000. NT kernel 4lif

2000 is basically XP.

XP is 2000 with extra fruityness and hand-holding. They came to their senses with the release of Server 2003. XP is the ME of the NT kernel.

/derail

That's harsh. You can chop up XP quite well. XPLite, nLite, manually disabling services, etc.

Can't we just set WinMe in a category all its own...?:(

Back on topic, please?

Ok...you wanted low resource, so people were starting with the foundation, OS.

foobar's good. I use the K-lite codec pack with media player classic for Realplayer Alternative and Quicktime Alternative. However, I use BSPlayer with all its supported formats. I just tested it on a xvid encoded anime, uses about 2/3 the memory and about 5/7 as much CPU as media player classic. (21/33 megs of ram, 55/75 percent cpu, respectively).

XP is not all that bad. In fact I think it's pretty stable, compared to ME.

For video player, I would recommend VideoLan (VLC). http://www.videolan.org/

That is my first and last choice for audio playback on my main system; the win2k crashbox is another story as it has at least 10 players for various testing purposes. FB2k has full support for a wide range of codecs (Ape/Flac/Shorten/Wavpack/MPC/Ogg-Vorbis/MP3/just to name a few)* either 'out of the box' or by adding one .dll file.
Of course it also has a very customisable interface, powerful masstager, full featured diskwriter, and others thing that I love about it.

*this is an especially important point for me as I have a decent amount of audio files in all of those codecs, and others not listed above.

I would suggest running on win2k rather than winXP as that has almost no craptacular worthless eye candy to disable like XP.

I agree. I was more alluding to XP's fruityness and pretty menus and dogs in the search engine kinda crap. I find XP very ME like in the fact it wasn't the sequel to win2000-it was kinda just something MS rlsed before they got serious and created Server 2003. I ran XP briefly on a couple machines and I just found it to be more buggy and too in your way compared to a "real" NT OS such as 2K/2k3. I am aware you can disable themes in XP but I found the OS itself to be too n00b oriented for me, even the Pro version. 2K(3) stay out of your way a lot more.

i assume that if you are using XP you'll also be disabling unnecessary services a'la Black Viper's XP Service Tweaks? [ http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm ]

for a vbery low resource browser that is blazing fast try eLinks or the classic Lynx. This post was made using eLinks and I may start using it for the bulk of my browsing for it's sheer speed and lack of prettyness of the www

I duel boot xp and 2000 Ive get 40 to 50 mg more unussed ram under 2000.

"Welcome to TinyApps.Org, a guide to very small software for your PC. Virtually all of the programs listed here are free of charge and for use under Windows. If this is your first visit, please read the FAQ."

Check them out at:
http://www.tinyapps.org/

The apps there are all written to be as small as possible, size wise, memory use wise, etc.

They've got a web browser that's 1.1mb in size.
a 42K ad blocker,
4k text editor,
5k CD player,
219k mp3 and wav player,
133k Media player supporting many formats and several OSs
Mpxplay 1.46 [223k] {S}+ DOS based (32-bit) audio player. Supports: MP2, MP3, AC3, OGG, MPC, WAV, CDW.

foobar2000 v0.667 [334k] + Simple yet powerful audio player with support for MP3, Ogg Vorbis, MPC, FLAC, Ogg FLAC, WAV, MOD, more.

CDex [1285k] {S}+ Rip CDs to WAV or MP3, convert files between WAV and MP3, more.

Audacity 1.0.0 [1290k] {S}+Audio editor that can record/play sounds, import/export WAV, AIFF & MP3 files, and much more. Windows, Mac, and *nix versions available.

billege: thanks so much.

tinyapps.org kicks serious arse. Thanks a lot billege for sharing!

Any low-resource (preferably free) antivirus programs? I'd use Norton, but it is a notorious resource hog and while being fine for my fairly current computer, it would be too much for my younger brother's P2-400.

AVG