High CPU or memory use
Each simultaneous visit is a full browser process, so memory scales directly with thread count. Lower the threads, and turn off Load Images to cut memory per visit. Rising page load timeouts as you add threads is the clearest sign you have gone too far.
OverRider is heavy by design. It runs real browsers rather than sending synthetic requests, and a real browser costs real memory. Ten simultaneous visits means ten Chrome processes.
Reduce it, in order of effect
1. Lower the thread count
This is the biggest lever, and it is close to linear — halving threads roughly halves memory use.
| Your RAM | Comfortable threads |
|---|---|
| 4 GB | 2 to 4 |
| 8 GB | 5 to 8 |
| 16 GB | 9 to 16 |
| 32 GB | 17 to 32 |
2. Turn off Load Images
Images are usually the largest part of a page. Disabling them in Visit Behaviour cuts memory and bandwidth noticeably, and has no effect on analytics.
Do not turn off Load JavaScript to save resources. It stops your analytics tag running, so visits succeed while recording nothing.
3. Try the other engine
Engine-1 runs a separate Node.js process alongside the browser; Engine-2 runs inside OverRider itself. Which one performs better depends on your specific hardware, so if resource use is tight, it’s worth testing a short run on each and comparing in Task Manager. See Engine-1 vs Engine-2.
4. Run fewer projects at once
Concurrent projects share threads, but each still carries its own overhead. Two or three at a time is a practical ceiling on typical hardware.
5. Shorten stay times
Longer stays mean each browser is held open longer, so more exist simultaneously at any moment. This is a smaller effect than thread count, but it is real.
How to tell the thread count is too high
Overloading does not announce itself. It shows up as:
- Page load timeouts climbing in the log
- Success rate falling as you raise threads
- The rest of the machine becoming sluggish
Raise threads in steps and watch the success rate at each step. The moment it starts falling, you have passed your machine’s limit — go back one step. Adding threads past that point produces fewer successful visits, not more.
Bandwidth is often the real limit
Each thread downloads a complete page. Ten threads on a slow connection will time out long before the CPU is stressed.
If Task Manager shows plenty of free CPU and RAM while visits still time out, your connection is the bottleneck. Turning off images helps here more than anything else.
Browser processes left behind
When you stop a project, OverRider ends the browser processes belonging to it. If you ever see Chrome or Chromium processes lingering after everything is stopped, close OverRider — anything still running ends with it.
Running it in the background
For long runs on a machine you also use:
- Keep threads at 3 or 4.
- Turn off Load Images.
- Test both engines and use whichever performs better on your machine.
- In Windows, set OverRider’s process priority to Below Normal so foreground work stays responsive.
Because browsers run without a visible window, they never steal focus — the impact is on resources, not on your screen.
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