loading new areas make the game slower

[anonima]

I played the game on my PC flawlessly (except for one crash).

I played the game on my 1 year old laptop and eveytime I go to a new location, the game got slower and slower. Eventually it got so sluggish that it became unplayable and that my system warned me that I am low on virtual memory (which never happened on my laptop before).

I do not neccessarily want to assume "correlation implies causation" that:
Playing the game, low virtual memory warning.
Playing the game caused the low virtual memory warning

However:

What I noticed about playing the game on both systems is that when I entered a new area, the game takes about 15-20 seconds on average to load the new location. When I backtrack to previously visited areas, the load times drop significantly, if not instantaneously.

Do all loaded areas load from the hard drive to memory and remain in memory until I quit the game? If so, I guess the simple solution is quit and reload when the game becomes sluggish.

Perhaps I should increase my virtual memory (I think recomended is 1.5 times the amount of RAM in the system).

[Emily]

Do you have any programs running in the background while you're playing (besides GameTap)? Antivirus, IM software, etc? If so, you should turn these off.

EDIT: I checked around, and it turns out that when this happens, quitting and starting up again is the way to fix it.

[anonima]

Thanks Emily

By the way, on my laptop, where I experience the problem, I only have the background programs that are there from startup running.

Am I on the track when I asked:
Do all loaded areas load from the hard drive to memory and remain in memory until I quit the game?