Hi everyone, I've been diving deeper into Process Lasso and wanted to ask about best practices for handling newer hybrid CPU architectures with P-cores and E-cores. I'm considering setting up persistent CPU affinity rules to push background tasks onto E-cores while keeping P-cores free for foreground apps, but I'm not sure how well this plays with ProBalance and the Windows scheduler over time. For those who've tried more controlled setups, have you seen real performance gains or stability issues compared to just letting the system manage everything dynamically? I'm aiming for a balanced configuration that handles gaming, background apps, and occasional heavier workloads efficiently.
I recommend trying Efficiency Mode ON/OFF rules first. For processes you want to stay on P-cores, set it to OFF. Then, if you feel the system isn't scheduling background processes to your E-cores as often or quickly as you prefer, add Efficiency Mode ON rules for them.
If you have any lingering problem processes, only then use the more heavy-handed CPU affinity rules to lock them down to the cores you want.
You can also use ParkControl (https://bitsum.com/parkcontrol/) to tweak your power plan configurations, specifying how strongly they prefer one class of cores or another.
YMMV, but I personally feel the scheduling of Intel heterogenous CPUs on Windows is still abysmal, although improving.
Quote from: stevetyrell on April 21, 2026, 07:05:45 AMHi everyone, I've been diving deeper into Process Lasso and wanted to ask about best practices for handling newer hybrid CPU architectures with P-cores and E-cores. I'm considering setting up persistent CPU affinity rules to push background tasks onto E-cores while keeping P-cores free for foreground apps, but I'm not sure how well this plays with ProBalance and the Windows scheduler over time. For those who've tried more controlled setups, have you seen real performance gains or stability issues compared to just letting the system manage everything dynamically? I'm aiming for a balanced configuration that handles gaming, background apps, and occasional heavier workloads efficiently.
I've experimented with pushing background tasks to E-cores while leaving P-cores mostly free, and I found that it can slightly improve responsiveness for foreground apps, especially in gaming. However, Windows' scheduler and ProBalance already do a decent job dynamically, so rigid affinity rules sometimes cause minor hiccups if workloads shift unexpectedly. For most users, a hybrid approach—letting ProBalance handle most processes while manually assigning only the heaviest background tasks to E-cores—strikes a good balance.
I followed these steps, but I'm still having trouble because background tasks aren't effectively utilizing the E-cores. Do you have any suggestions for adjustments to ensure better performance in this area?