Reducing VRAM usage while idle?

I have a core 2 duo mac mini with 4GB Ram (256MB VRAM, Nvidia 9400M) running XBMC and Hulu Desktop in different spaces. The problem I'm running into is that while XBMC is running, Hulu playback is choppy. If I exit out of XBMC, Hulu playback is perfect. It would appear that my Mini is running out of Video Ram due to both apps being open at the same time. Is there anything I can do to my XBMC install to make it use less video memory while sitting idle? It shouldn't really have to use much at all I would think, since there is no video playback being done.

Thanks

Quote:It shouldn't really have to use much at all I would think, since there is no video playback being done.

You should know from your findings that it is doing something as on closing hulu works better.
To the best of my knowledge GPU is used to render parts of the menu, these parts are rendered 30 - 60 fps continually. XBMC's menu isn't static.

One thing which may help is to set the screensaver to go to a black screen when watching hulu. This may be achievable through a hot key/ script also

For more fruitless arguing about resources XBMC uses while on menu:
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=102260
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=97205
It's the same basic agrument but with CPU instead of GPU