Gothic 3 SmartHeap Library: out of memory error

Hi there,

I'm running the machine listed in my signature block. I've installed Ultima IX (oops, I mean Gothic 3) v1.12 and set everything to maximum. No community patches yet, but they're on my to-do list. I start the game, clear the village, venture into the countryside, then within a few minutes the game hangs. If I Alt-Tab or Ctrl-Alt-Del I get a 'SmartHeap Library: out of memory' error message.

Reset and repeat ad nauseum.

I've tried running at stock speeds, but that makes no difference. Any thoughts? I've seen advice elsewhere about taking two of my DIMMs out (leaving 2x1G) - not real keen to do that if I can help it, because I like having a full 2G available for applications without being chewed up by overheads etc.

On (hopefully) a side-note, Vista, 3DMark06 and perhaps a handful of other applications all recognise my pc as having around 3.5G ram - should I be concerned? Is this possibly related (unlikely though that may be)?

Thanks in advance. Despite everything I've heard, I still want to battle through this game (much as I did Ultima IX).