Need to release memory from unused images (Dispose?)

Question

Hello I am making a game and want to unload images when they aren't needed. For now I am just setting their sources to null: imgExample.Source = null; But this isn't enough. I already tried Freezing but it doesn't seem to help much. I read that their is such thing like Dispose() that seem to unload all the memory in such cases but I don't know how to use it. I tried: imgExample.Dispose(); But it didn't work it seems I am missing either some kind of variable or a using directive. What can be done in this situation?

Amresh S · Answer

Hi Evgenie You need to call the GC's finalizer to get the unrefreed-symbols from the cahe and this actually does the process to free the memoy. Refer the below code snippet: public class YourClass : IDisposable { private bool disposed = false ; protected virtual void Dispose( bool disposing) { if (!disposed) { if (disposing) { // Set Null values to your unused variables here } disposed = true ; } } public void Dispose() // Implement IDisposable { Dispose( true ); GC.SuppressFinalize( this ); } Hope this helps. Regards Amresh S.

Amresh S · Answer

Hi @Evgenie Yes thats enough to clear-up the memory used up. Also you can specify the null vaues to any kind of return type variables in that part //-set null vaues here. Regards Amresh S.

Evgenie Tivaniuk · Answer

@Amresh S My many thanks that worked perfectly! This reduced about 200M of RAM. God bless you!

Evgenie Tivaniuk · Answer

I need to test it at home but have a question for now. About this line: GC.SuppressFinalize( this ); I am using GC.Collect in my code can those two garbage collectors both work when used together? And to make sure: I can use any kind of objects here right? Except images I also have MediaElements. I guess that also works on them? So all things I want to dispose I need to put inside this? I can put them all here together? Sorry if my questions are silly. if (disposing) { // Set Null values to your unused variables here }