Low CPU vs New Generation Touhou Games

[Oh]

Hello, I was wondering about how to run the Touhou games in such a way that lowers RAM usage.
There is, on my computer, evident lag with all the Touhou games starting from SA. Sometimes, the game will drop frames (still running at full speed, for example the majority of SA and UFO, TD has some patterns) and appear very choppy. I feel that my input movement in these later games are not up to par with my movement of character in games like EoSD or MoF. As if there is a lag to my movement. I'm using a USB keyboard and my PC is not so great, but I would like to run games like UFO because I actually want to play it.
Any tips or advice is much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[Agent of the BSoD]

If you are not already doing so, use the vsync patches. They will help with input lag greatly, might help with fps as well. (look for Drake's project thread in the Touhou Projects section) As for lowering RAM, I've never heard of that. I'd assume that's not possible as the game kinda needs those resources. Might want to look into a new computer soon, or at least, upgrade some parts in your current system down the line, as Touhou is generally very lightweight for CPU and RAM usage. (it is true that the later games use more, not including the fighters here)

[Oh]

I'm using the vsync patch, yes. I'm really just wondering how I can make the games less memory intensive.
I feel kind of bad for hating UFO simply because my system refuses to operate it without lag.

[EthanSilver]

Memory usage generally has little relation to how fast a program runs or doesn't - it's just temporary storage for the program and has no real relation to how "hard" a program is working. You're almost certainly limited by your video card or drivers. Making sure they're completely up to date (DirectX, too) would be a very good first step if you haven't done so already - updating my drivers after nearly 3 years (...kinda got lazy >_> ) made most games using Direct3D run ~30% faster for me, which is really significant!

In the config.exe, you can also try to run in a smaller resolution and to reduce the color depth from 32bpp to 16bpp. Less data to pass to the GPU per frame means less time spent rendering a frame (and cuts down the amount of VRAM the game uses by nearly half). The frameskip options are pretty much all that's left for you to tweak if you're still not getting acceptable performances. Input latency may be worth looking into - the default option isn't the one that uses the least CPU and a different setting may help with your control issues.

Unfortunately, the cold hard truth is that these games expect a certain minimal configuration to run and if you can't meet those requirements there's not much you can do about it other than upgrade... There will inevitably be a "cut-off game" where your hardware just won't be able to keep up with what these games are attempting to do and the only way past it is to upgrade. If it makes you feel any better, my older PC also couldn't get through UFO. I could run it just fine but some graphical operation performed during the 5th or 6th stage would suddenly dump me back to my desktop without so much as an error message. Getting desktoped on Byakuren's last spellcard while thinking I'd finally get to clear the game was very rage-inducing.