Maintaining enough free and available Finder and System memory at all times is key to not getting screen hangs, Finder freezes, and System crashes. Run Release Memory™ with as many or few applications running which suits you - and run it as frequently as you wish.
Release Memory™ works with any application, especially games - and is a good companion to Cyberdog. OpenDoc's memory management is restored to working order quite nicely from this kind of adjustment.
The fewer applications open while Release Memory™ runs, the more memory is recovered for immediate application use. So, from within MemoryMapper's File menubar option, select 'Send Quit Event' for any number of open applications (starting with the bottom of the list). The effect will quit applications and 'unsandwich' trapped blocks of free memory, sequentially - including the largest 'trapped' block.
Then run Release Memory™. All open windows on your desktop will close. Memory Mapper will open for you to read the 'before' amounts of available Finder and System Heap free memory. Finder memory is freed up while Mac OS Purge runs once for each open process to free up System memory in a coordinated sequence to curtail dangerously low memory conditions both during the actual running of Release Memory™ and later when you're reopening and working in applications. Finally, you are given the option to run Mac OS Purge once more for perhaps an additional amount of memory recovery.