Dual and quad core processors are quite affordable nowadays and the performance they bring when paired with an optimized operating system like Windows 7 can be astounding. You can throw a number of CPU intensive tasks at the system and it will happily chug along with barely a perceivable slow-down. However, like most things, there are limits before things begin to buckle. Long executing tasks, such as video encoding, can really bog things down as they churn in the background and you continue on with other tasks. Windows assigns priorities to every running process – a higher priority task will have access to more of the system resources than a lower priority task. User initiated processes generally default to the normal priority class. For video encoding where it is common to execute for hours while tasking the system, it could make sense to lessen the priority so the rest of the system remains responsive. Running at a lower priority will cause the entire process to take longer of course, but sometimes it’s better to just be able to continue your multi-tasking ways while it diligently finishes it’s rendering. Windows Task Manager is the simplest way to manipulate the priority level of any running program. Locate the application in the Processes tab, right-click and choose Set Priority. This is a bit cumbersome to repeat on a continual basis however. TopWinPrio is a light weight and free Windows application that can automate this task without any intervention on your part, sort of. TopWinPrio will automatically increase the priority of the active application; which is slightly backwards to what we were doing previously – lessening the priority of background tasks. However the end result is all the same – tasks in the background are running with a lower priority than foreground or active tasks. A utility that sits in your desktop tray, out of the way, and silently does it’s job like TopWinPrio can help you squeeze a few more frames-per-second in your game or aide in preventing Photoshop from dragging down the performance of the entire system.
Boosting the priority of the active application automatically
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