Ideas for process lasso

[Blood154]

Hello everyone,

I have some ideas for future functions:

For Game optimizer:
-network priority for games
-setting the highest windows timeresolution available when game detected: 0,5 ms is the possible lowest, but default value is 1 ms (some games are definitely smoother with 0,5 ms)
-Mouse polling rate changer: There isn't any up to date utility for this.

For process lasso:
-Device Interrupt Affinity changer
-Driver priority changer

[BenYeeHua]

Err...

Too bad that, except Timer Resolution, most feature that you are asking need driver to control it...

For network priority, you can use cFosSpeed.
For Mouse polling rate changer, you can really buy a gaming mouse that has native support, as I tested, cheap mouse that overclock to 1000hz will very easy to broke the light sensor...

For Device Interrupt Affinity changer, as I know Microsoft has the tools, but I am not sure did it still working or not.
For Driver priority changer, not sure about it, I don't think we can change the driver priority, except the driver itself.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/ff564638%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

[Jeremy Collake]

Thanks for these suggestions, and sorry I didn't respond sooner.

You're generally on the right track, though there are some technical limitations and misconceptions as well.

I will come back and give more through responses to these suggestions as soon as I can.

[tazy]

Everything is fixed now. Great support.
Thank you very much...!!!

[lmstearn]

Hi Jeremy & Ben, have you anything planned for tweaks on Timer Resolution?

It has been mentioned here https://bitsum.com/forum/index.php?topic=4511.0.

Also someone has done a little testing here: http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/925691-skyrim-memory-leak-fix/page-111#entry21328894

I ran powercfg -energy duration 5 with fairly dire results.

The biggest culprit for me is the Skyrim Creation Kit which chews up processing power especially when animations are toggled on.
The other one is Chrome where mea culpa there are around 30 windows running.
What would be the upside & downside of increasing the timer for all Chrome windows (hopefully in just one click)?
Thanks for the program!

[Jeremy Collake]

This is not an area I've done additional research on yet. Please hold and I will give my opinion (and or work) on the subject.

The problem of Skyrim Creation Kit chewing up CPU resources isn't resolved by ProBalance? If not, that is likely due to the foreground exclusion (or another exclusion). Tweaking ProBalance may be all that is necessary. What is your complaint due to the CPU load?

Same for chrome. It will not be restrained by Process Lasso while you are using it. Nor will it's child processes. You can change that behavior though.

[lmstearn]

What is your complaint due to the CPU load?

Nothing more than expected with the CK. It is a greedy program. Can be a problem when running the configured game process Skyrim and its modifications. But that's an issue with CK not your software. What do you suggest with Probalance?

You can change that behavior though

Fairly happy with the way Chrome runs. But open to suggestions (apart from reducing child processes)

[BenYeeHua]

Hi Jeremy & Ben, have you anything planned for tweaks on Timer Resolution?

Fixed for you.

The biggest culprit for me is the Skyrim Creation Kit which chews up processing power especially when animations are toggled on.
The other one is Chrome where mea culpa there are around 30 windows running.
What would be the upside & downside of increasing the timer for all Chrome windows (hopefully in just one click)?
Thanks for the program!

PS:The context below is correct if you means increasing the timer from 15.625ms to 1ms.

Not sure, because you need to run the benchmark to know how's the performance of Chrome become, Chrome force this is because they said most apps(Flash Player) are doing this, so they are also doing this.

For Firefox, it don't increase the Timer Resolution unless you are running some JS that asking for it, like some add-on which is TMP(Tab Mix Plus) will do this when you are opening a new tab for the animation, and Firefox will slowly count down then release the change from 1ms to system default, and nope, I don't do some research on their source code, so I don't know why they want to do this.

For IE, yes, it is dynamic changing the Timer Resolution, and only increase it when some JS asking for it, until you go to PowerPlan and set the IE - JS frequency to Maximum Power Save.

The good is, the performance for many software is increased, it has some downside for some software as it is cause overhead, but it is fixed for Windows 8+.
The bad is, the power consumption increased too much IF you are doing this when you are not doing anything(A.K.A idle).

If you want to stop them changing the Timer Resolution, there is no easy ways to do this, unless you inject every process that is doing this, and stop them calling the API.

Preventing the timer frequency from being raised on your machine is simple. All you have to do is inject code into every process which shims timeBeginPeriod before it is called so that calls to it are a NOP. However, despite this being an obviously trivial task that could be put together in mere seconds, nobody has yet offered up anything more than code snippets and links to references.

http://randomascii.wordpress.com/2013/07/08/windows-timer-resolution-megawatts-wasted/

[Jeremy Collake]

Nothing more than expected with the CK. It is a greedy program. Can be a problem when running the configured game process Skyrim and its modifications. But that's an issue with CK not your software. What do you suggest with Probalance?
Fairly happy with the way Chrome runs. But open to suggestions (apart from reducing child processes)

Well, so much to go through here, so let me ask one question at a time.

Does your PC responsiveness suffer from Skyrim? If so, ProBalance may not be acting on it for one reason or another, one that we could deduce. Check the Insights and see if Skyrim.exe is listed.

You can also change the CPU affinity of Skyrim, give it access to one less core for instance. That limits it's effective CPU use (and also limits it's max performance).

[edkiefer]

I am going to guess since Skyrim:Creation Kit is a editing tool for data files it maybe I/O issue .

never used it so you need to check whats going on, CPU bound, I/o bound etc .

[Jeremy Collake]

It depends. The amount of CPU required for the processing of the data is what would define whether it's I/O or CPU bound. I'm really curious about what the problem is - the symptom he's having. The load should be properly handled in either case.

[lmstearn]

@Ben
Thanks for the info and the link!
@Jeremy
Strange, everything but skyrim (tesV.exe configured as game process) is listed in insights. But I do run it from the SKSE launcher via Steam: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=162323484

You can also change the CPU affinity of Skyrim

Done awhiles back. Uses cores (123) of 4 cores (0123).

Look, guys, this is not a high end gaming machine and don't run any SSDs. Do try to keep the HDDs trim, but over time things just clog up, more updating, more logging, more software. Getting a little stuttery lag just after loading a Skyrim cell. After a short while in-game it's fine.
But never did happen when the game was first run years ago. It does live on a 2nd HDD WD Black 500 which is absolutely reliable.
I'm fine with all that.

As to the topic at hand: Feature request:
As PL is getting bigger & better, consider a VS (tabbed or treeview) styled preferences dialogue with backup, save/default/import/export ini settings. Generic or preset inis can be formulated for different systems.
IMOP the menu dropdowns are getting a little top-heavy. 

[Jeremy Collake]

It not being listed in Insights means ProBalance isn't acting on it. That may be because it sets it's own priority, or some other reason. We want ProBalance to act on it.

Try unchecking 'Options / ProBalance Settings / Exclude processes of non-normal priority'

Once ProBalance starts acting on it, despite the high CPU load, your PC will continue to be responsive.

--
Yes, the menus are crazy large. Refactoring is coming. I've quit expressing my plans publicly, because plans change, but believe me when I say these concerns aren't lost on me and action is being taken.

[lmstearn]

Thanks Jeremy