In the Task Manager, under the "Processes" tab, you can get more detailed memory info by turning them on in Edit->Select Columns... You can get swap activity among other things.
Oh thanks, I'll try that out and let you know what I find out.
Oops, assuming you are on Windows.
Yes I am.
If there is a heavy GUI, then there could be a problem with a lot of communication between the pd and pd-gui processes.
This is not the case. I eliminated all the GUI and the problem persists. There is really nothing "going on" in the patch except the oscillator playing a 500Hz sinusoid. Everything else is idle (I mean doing nothing) as far as it depends on me. Nothing is generating messages. Things are just there, and abstraction/subpatches containing dsp stuff are all switched off. If PD is doing something it is doing it on its own initiative.
Also, this message is really long. It's best to include a short summary at the top, then the lengthy details later. More people will read the message then.
Yes you're perfectly right. Thanks for the advice.