What do this process priority in the general actually do?

[sleeplessrevolution]

Hi guys this might be newb question but I've notice what do the process priority in the general actually do? Is this suppose to make the video run smoother or maybe a higher quality? But I've tried to choose above normal to high setting and I didn't notice anything different from the normal setting at all? What do you guys got there?...

[adicoto]

If you have 2 processes running, for example mumu.exe who is using 50 % of the CPU and BSPlayer.exe, using 50 % of the CPU, and system need some 10 % of the CPU, from where does it takes those 10 % ?
Yes, you are right, from the process wich doesn't have a high priority. And as all processes are born equal, but you don't want BSPlayer to stop playing your favorite file, in this case is better to set it's process priority to above normal. So, when needed, mumu.exe will be slowed down and not BSPlayer.exe.

[sleeplessrevolution]

Originally Posted by adicoto

If you have 2 processes running, for example mumu.exe who is using 50 % of the CPU and BSPlayer.exe, using 50 % of the CPU, and system need some 10 % of the CPU, from where does it takes those 10 % ?
Yes, you are right, from the process wich doesn't have a high priority. And as all processes are born equal, but you don't want BSPlayer to stop playing your favorite file, in this case is better to set it's process priority to above normal. So, when needed, mumu.exe will be slowed down and not BSPlayer.exe.

Very nice answer. Thanks pal ^_^

[J7N]

From my experience I can tell that process priority has more meaning on Win98 (perhaps an older Celeron CPU?). I boosted Winamp to "time critical" to play background music during videogames and DOS sessions, and it performed well without any interruptions.

On WinXP BSPlayer played as smooth as before, even when I have eMule (with occasional heavy HDD access), Direct Connect and a X264 encoding process running in background.

[Tizio]

I have WinXP, but since my PC specs are low sometimes to have BSplayer setted to "Above Normal" helps to play my videos smoothly while in the background there are active tasks.
I think this option should be available for most long-time-processing applications, but sometime I have to set priority for tasks through TaskManager. But it's boring to do this every time, instead BSplayer remember its priority level and it's a great thing