Is there any reliable software out there that frees up physical memory?

I was recently playing a game and it shut down unexpectedly. When I sent the "bug report" to the company, it came back and said something to the effect of not having enough physical memory and that was somehow causing the problem.

I'm pretty sure I can buy more memory for my computer, but in addition, I was wondering (well, hoping) that there was a program that helps free up memory. Am I dreaming?

You free memory by closing programs. If you are trying to play a game, close your Web browser, iTunes, instant messenger, etc. In the extreme, you can create a separate user account just for games with nothing loading at startup.

Any utility program that advertises "freeing" or "compressing" memory is a scam.

If your computer uses Windows 2000 or XP, you can turn off many services that Windows uses to do things. Many aren't needed by the average user and can be stopped to free up memory. Try this page:

http://www.beemerworld.com/tips/servicesxp.htm