Minecraft Crashing

[Nickompoop]

Minecraft keeps crashing, giving me an error saying it the Java Virtual Machine ran out of memory. When I open Task Manager to watch the Physical Memory Usage History as I play the game, I see the line steadily rise until it hits the 1.6 GB mark, then Minecraft craps out on me. The thing is, this error only happens on a new Adventure map I downloaded. The RAM usage on my native single-player maps even out at about 1.5 GBs. I've never had any issues with memory until today, so I think it might be something to do with the map, but I don't know how that's possible.

What could be causing such a funky error, and how do I fix it? Also, how to I allocate more memory usage to the Java Virtual Machine?

My system specs:
nVidia 9800GTX+
2GB DDR2 RAM
2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo
Vista Basic 32 bit
Minecraft 1.8.1

 

[tharglet]

By default, the Java heap size is pretty small (usually 512MB iirc). Looks like you may've increased it already, seeing as it gets to over 1.5GB before it craps out.
One way is to use a smaller texture pack if you're not using default. Smaller texture packs use up less memory (kinda duh, but does make a significant diff to minecraft)

Personally I use a batch file to run minecraft - to increase it up to 2GB it'd be something similar to the following:
javaw -Xmx2048M -Xms2048M -jar C:\Minecraft\Minecraft.exe"

If you copy that line into notepad (or your fave plaintext editor), change the path to minecraft to your minecraft.exe, go to save, ensure "all files" is selected at the bottom, then save as "Minecraft.bat" (anywhere will do) then double-click the "minecraft.bat", it'll give your minecraft 2GB of memory before it poops.

 

[sifffffff]

You also might want to see if you need to update your Java. Check the Java website and get the 32 bit vista compatible version. I was having this issue as well and updating Java fixed it for me.

 

[Nickompoop]

Spoiler

By default, the Java heap size is pretty small (usually 512MB iirc). Looks like you may've increased it already, seeing as it gets to over 1.5GB before it craps out.
One way is to use a smaller texture pack if you're not using default. Smaller texture packs use up less memory (kinda duh, but does make a significant diff to minecraft)

Personally I use a batch file to run minecraft - to increase it up to 2GB it'd be something similar to the following:
javaw -Xmx2048M -Xms2048M -jar C:\Minecraft\Minecraft.exe"

If you copy that line into notepad (or your fave plaintext editor), change the path to minecraft to your minecraft.exe, go to save, ensure "all files" is selected at the bottom, then save as "Minecraft.bat" (anywhere will do) then double-click the "minecraft.bat", it'll give your minecraft 2GB of memory before it poops.

You also might want to see if you need to update your Java. Check the Java website and get the 32 bit vista compatible version. I was having this issue as well and updating Java fixed it for me.

Updating Java did not work; Minecraft now crashes at 1.70 GBs. My Survival Mode map levels off at 1.61 GBs and Creative Mode levels off at 1.77 GBs.

Running the batch file gives me the error that it can't create the Java virtual machine.

The texture pack I use (AI Pack [http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/294862-%E2%98%85-16x-19-pre-release-4-ai-pack-%E2%98%85]) is supposed to be the same size as the default texture pack, so I don't think that's the issue.