Windows 7 keeps putting my programs to LOW priority

[arajigar]

Hi. I am suffering a weird problem for a couple of weeks about priority of some of my programs.
I first thought that was related to a bad configurarion of hardwre (HDD), or a bad driver/program that was running in the background, creating CPU pikes that were noticed in Games overall.

Well, I decided to do a clean install of windows, and installing only the indispensable Distributables and DirectX, just to start from new and see if the problem persists... and it does.

The problem is W7 putting some programs to LOW priority, which causes them to try to perform normally and thus creating pikes of CPU needs. When I put the programs in NORMAL (Ctrl+Alt+Supr ->resource monitor->set the task´s priority manually) all goes fine.

This problem is most noticeable in Games. When I run MSI Afterburner I can see that there´s a cyclic fps drop togheter with a raise in CPU demands form 19 to 63%. If Priority is nomal the demand is always 18-19%, with max peaks of 23%, I must say that the game then runs smooth at constant 60 fps.

I did try to use a bat to set priority on program startup (no luck), use PRIO program (no luck too).

What can I do?

 

[stdragon]

https://www.eightforums.com/threads/processor-scheduling-adjust-for-performance-in-windows.24129/

The link above relate to the Processor Scheduling option being prioritized for either "Programs" or "Background Services". By default, it should be set to "Programs"

 

[arajigar]

Oh!, That´s the first thing I did when I installed W7, also I changed the swap drive, put the energy management to maximum performance... but I will try the REGEDIT part, I cannot understand why if W7 has set the priority for programs as NORMAL it changes this flag to LOW causing this kind of trouble.

What´s causing the registry not be able to keep the settings I choose?
I hope that modifying it DIRECTLY fix all.

Also... Can I do so the registry keeps the settings for each program I want to run in NORMAL or ABOVE NORMAL priority?, as PRIO does (apparently this program don´t work well with W7SP1).

I have W7 Ultimate SP1, btw.

Many thanks in anticipation.

 

[TerryLaze]

If this only happens with some games (you could list a few) then it is a settings that the developers used and it's not windows's fault.
Try starting prio with right click -> run as administrator,I use process explorer to set priorities and keep them saved and it needs to start as administrator to be able to do it.

 

[arajigar]

Hi TerryLaze!, I wish I can do as you say, but PRIO, once installed, does not left a Prio.exe to be executed as administrator, it only left an uninstall.exe and four dlls.

The games that are causing trouble are Doom and Wolfenstein the New Colossus. But I have to test others to see if the problem is there too.

What about to create an entry in the registry for each game?. I did read some documentation about this (Microsoft´s site mainly) but does not give me much help.

Edit: I think I've got it. Give me some time to do some testing and I will tell how it went.

 

[arajigar]

No luck. Well, what I'd try to do was creating a key into the registry for each executable, and defining there its CPU priority. Altough the system works, the games seem to not being affected by the settings. Probably I did not choose the right place to init the key (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE). Any suggestions? I feel like my PC is mocking of me. Another symptom I noticed is that CPU usage increases when I move the mouse, although It is obvious that it should be related to the rendering, right?
Help...please, even changes done in the settings in the task manager did not stay.

Second edit: for those who want to know what I did.
1. I opened regedit as administrator
2. Opened HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options
4. Create a new key with the name of the exe file
5. Created inside the new key another one called "PerfOptions"
6. Created a DWORD32 string named "CpuPriorityClass" (without quotes)
7. Modified its value from zero to 6 (the number for Above normal priority)

Well, this, of course, it is not mine. I discovered this method in other forums (Reddit, Overwatch, Fortnite, Microsoft, etc.)
But settings don't stay, at least if I look to the program in task manager after pressing ctrl+alt+supr.

 

[arajigar]

UPDATE: stop goofing with regedit or BIOS, or any other fixes you must heard of. Here´s one INTERESTING link about shuttering coming from Nvidia GPUs.

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/1019366/-nvidia-confirms-stuttering-fps-drops-lag-problems-are-an-issue-of-their-drivers-/

Also here´s a link to some of the most efficient FIX:

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/832686/geforce-drivers/the-lag-stuttering-issue-a-ton-of-people-are-having/

https://www.reddit.com/r/GlobalOffensive/comments/2e6xsr/potential_fix_for_those_experiencing_fps_lag_and/

In the other hand, the Registry solution for putting programs at normal-high priority will not harm your system, at least mine´s intact until now.

I know that this thread passed from CPU usage to a GPU problem, taht was not my intention but things went this way.
Sorry for that.

 

[stdragon]

See if you can dig a little deeper with LatencyMon. If there's truly an IRQ storm or other issue with a specific driver, this might reveal some more info.

http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon

 

[arajigar]

Thanks!!, I will for sure try that!. In the other hand, I must apologize because I did not say that I tried the "Uninstall-HDA" method, and things seemed to work fine. I must say that I uninstalled ONLY the HDA of Nvidia through Device Manager (disbled the HDA form the device list) and left the Audio controllers that come with the MOBO (GA Z77 D3H rev1.1 F12 BIOS), I have read that you need to unistall all drivers, but disabling the HDA seemed to work without the need to unistall form the Uninstall Manager (I did this and the Nvidia HDA software disappeared form the progams´ list).

Aniway, I´ll try latencymon and see what happen with further testings.

Thanks stdragon!