any way to avoid degradation in process priority?
By
Gangrel_EU,
Posted on: 2011-02-16 13:26 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
CoH usually functions at "Normal" Priority, but as soon as it loses focus (like opening the Windows Task Manager to check/set the priority) it's moved to "BelowNormal". That makes people think it's running that way while you are playing when it actually isn't. It moves back to "Normal" as soon as it has focus again.
really? :x but the game sometimes lags when it shouldn`t. 
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Maybe you have another program running that's trying to take focus away from the game... or it's lagging due to something else unrelated to specific priority.
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Originally Posted by TheGodOfGods
really? :x but the game sometimes lags when it shouldn`t.
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Windows Task Manager is a classic example of Schrödinger's cat... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat
Observation will destroy your experiment...
The Sly Bold Renardine - " I am Scraptastic!"
MANY things contribute to lag. While it's possible that you have a program running in the background that steals priority from City of Heroes, it's far more likely that there's network traffic issues between your computer, your local ISP's router, their connection to one of the "backbone" service providers, the backbone's connection to City's datacenter's ISP, and that ISP's connection to the game's login and map servers.
Plus there's internal network lag on City of Heros' end, inside the datacenter. Its minimal.. unless there's a hardware failure or the specific mapservers can't keep up with the demand on processing power.
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I have two monitors, I will check that out and see if it does switch as the game goes in and out of focus.
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Originally Posted by Starcloud
MANY things contribute to lag. While it's possible that you have a program running in the background that steals priority from City of Heroes, it's far more likely that there's network traffic issues between your computer, your local ISP's router, their connection to one of the "backbone" service providers, the backbone's connection to City's datacenter's ISP, and that ISP's connection to the game's login and map servers.
Plus there's internal network lag on City of Heros' end, inside the datacenter. Its minimal.. unless there's a hardware failure or the specific mapservers can't keep up with the demand on processing power. |
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Having focus doesn't just mean it's the application "on top" of the screen. It means that it's the application currently accepting input from the keyboard. Even if you have 2 monitors, only one program will have focus, so you'd still run into the same problem anyway. Once you check the Task Manager, CoH will switch priority, even if it's on another screen.|
Originally Posted by _Zep_
I have two monitors, I will check that out and see if it does switch as the game goes in and out of focus.
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One way you CAN check this though (even if you use one screen).. is to set your Task Manager Options to "Always on Top", and make sure the cityofheroes.exe process is visible on the list. Click on the game window to give it focus again, and then right click directly on cityofheroes.exe to check the priority. At the moment you click, the priority status hasn't changed yet, so you will see it's set to "Normal". If you check it after Task Manager already has focus, you'd see "BelowNormal".
You'll have to do it "just right" to notice how it works and see the correct results, but that's just the nature of it.
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Right, I am aware of 'Focus' I had hoped that task manager could show the process priority on real time, not buried in a menu.|
Originally Posted by Master-Blade
Having focus doesn't just mean it's the application "on top" of the screen. It means that it's the application currently accepting input from the keyboard. Even if you have 2 monitors, only one program will have focus, so you'd still run into the same problem anyway. Once you check the Task Manager, CoH will switch priority, even if it's on another screen.
One way you CAN check this though (even if you use one screen).. is to set your Task Manager Options to "Always on Top", and make sure the cityofheroes.exe process is visible on the list. Click on the game window to give it focus again, and then right click directly on cityofheroes.exe to check the priority. At the moment you click, the priority status hasn't changed yet, so you will see it's set to "Normal". If you check it after Task Manager already has focus, you'd see "BelowNormal". You'll have to do it "just right" to notice how it works and see the correct results, but that's just the nature of it. |
I took a quick look for a utility that would show processes and their priority, so I could stick it on the other monitor and watch it change, then I got bored with it.
Anyone know a process monitor tool that will show the priority and update in real time?
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Even if it could, the "always on top" option would allow you to see it while using only a single monitor. The second screen is still unnecessary.|
Originally Posted by _Zep_
Right, I am aware of 'Focus' I had hoped that task manager could show the process priority on real time, not buried in a menu.
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I took a quick look for a utility that would show processes and their priority, so I could stick it on the other monitor and watch it change, then I got bored with it. Anyone know a process monitor tool that will show the priority and update in real time? |
I guess if such a program does not have a "always on top" option, then your second monitor would become useful in that regard.
Process Explorer is what I use as my task manager.. you can download it from www.sysinternals.com (dont worry about the microsoft part, they bought out the company cos they knew more about how windows worked than some engineers at microsoft).
you can choose for it to show priority, but it will do it as a numerical value (as windows itself manages it)
Idle: 4
Below Normal: 6
Normal: 8
Above Normal: 10
High: 13
Real Time: 24
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Thanks for that link. It's a pretty neat program. I think I'm going to use it for my Task Manager also. |
Originally Posted by Gangrel_EU
Process Explorer is what I use as my task manager.. you can download it from www.sysinternals.com
... ... you can choose for it to show priority, but it will do it as a numerical value (as windows itself manages it) ... |
It took me a minute to find the option, but it does display the priority on a table (and has an "always on top" option). I just tested and re-verified that cityofheroes.exe does indeed change from 6 to 8 depending on whether or not it has Focus. It only runs on 8 (Normal) while it has focus. Even as much as opening the taskbar makes CoH's priority change to 6 (BelowNormal).
That sounds about right with even using the taskbar making CoX loose priority.
Advantage is that if it *does* stick at a low priority, you can always bring it back up with Process Explorer
i think i have asked this years ago, but i forgot what the answer was to this problem.
any help?