When I discovered it may have been memory issues with my pc, I opted to try optimise my OS, a little and try free up some resources, as upgading wasnt really an option for me at the time....

Im not sure what OS youre using, but Im guessing its probably XP? In my administartive tasks, in the control panel, I started by disabling a lot of common (useless) tasks that are by default enabled... for me that included print spooling, reporrting error messages etc....
Next I installed a fab little application (dowload is free). Sits in your taskbar permanently, but takes up little or no memory. You can set it to refresh a specified amount of memory every X amount of minutes. XP doesnt flush your system memory very well, so gradually it gets used up. This app retrieves it for you.... Which is great when youre doing renders of this amplitude....

I hope this helps you, as I quite understand your frustration.... Heres the link to the download...

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,7604,00.asp

"If toast
always lands butter-side down, and cats always land on their feet, what
happens if you strap toast on the back of a cat and drop it?"

Steven Wright