Improve Process Management in Windows

Introduction

Have you observed that your cursor hangs or an application freezes? Thinking to buy new PC due to this? Please read this article first. This happens due to over usage of resources especially CPU by a process. Let’s see how this happens.

Don't like theory? Skip to Personal Experience

The process is a collection of threads (running tasks). This is what an Operating System (OS) sees, and executes. It basically keeps a long list of threads and rotates through them, giving each a turn to use the CPU(s) for a brief period of time (a time slice). This is where a thread's priority comes into play, along with other factors. The priority helps the scheduler (the part of the OS responsible for handing out time slices) determine which thread should get the next time slice.

A CPU can only do one thing at a time. Therefore, to multitask, the CPU is quickly switched between all active threads on the system. It switches between threads so quickly that it appears multiple processes are running at the exact same time, when in fact they are just taking turns (concurrently). For multi-CPU (multi core) systems, this is still true, except that there are more CPUs available for thread execution, thus allowing some true simultaneous execution instead of just concurrent 
execution.

When the threads of multiple processes need to use the CPU at the same time, the priority level of each thread is used to help determine which should get the CPU next (which is most important). By temporarily lowering the priority class of overly active background processes, your system is kept responsive even in the face of high CPU loads. Lowering the priority class of a process lowers the priority of all threads in that process. When acting on a process, you are essentially changing the base priority from which the individual priorities of all threads of that process are derived from. In this way, the relative priorities between threads in a process are kept the same.

Problem with Windows

Windows has a particularly bad problem dealing with threads that decide they want to consume every bit of CPU time they can get their hands on (a CPU bound thread). A single 'CPU bound' thread running at Normal priority can bring an entire single-CPU system to a stall.

An example is if someone makes a C program with infinite loop. 
When there is a high load on the CPU(s), the responsiveness of the PC can be severely impacted. On a single processor PC, it takes only one CPU hungry thread running at normal priority to bring the entire system to stall.

Solution

Process Lasso, a product by Bitsum LLC is a good solution for these types of resource hogging processes. It is based on native code so it consumes least possible RAM (~4MB-5MB in background and ~5MB-7MB in foreground) and CPU load ~2%-3%. It works on ProBalance (Process Balance) technology, a proprietary algorithm that temporarily adjusts the priority of running processes in an effort to keep your system responsive during high loads.

What it does? :-  

1.       Like some Linux Kernel penalize CPU bound (CPU hungry) threads while rewarding some I/O bound threads.

2.       It lowers the priority class of background processes when they interfere with system responsiveness. E.g.  From lower to below lower.

Whenever process lasso intercepts that a process is decreasing responsiveness of system, it is called as Restraints.

Claim by Bitsum LLC

The company claims its usefulness of its manager by CPU Eater software, which is downloadable from its website. The ProBalance algorithm works as claimed by company.

Other features

1.       Game Mode: Boosts the performance of games by turning battery profile to Bitsum Recommended Mode. The technology is derived from its in-house freeware ParkControl. It runs at max frequency.

2.       Idle Saver: Runs CPU at max performance but switches to conservative idle saver when PC is idle.

3.       Smart Trim: This feature is recommended by company for advanced users only. It intelligently selects some portion of RAM and pages it. So it’s an effective RAM Manager.

4.       Sleep Policy: Avoids PC and/or display to go to sleep when a specific process is launched. E.g. We wouldn’t like PC to go to sleep when a video/audio is running to go to sleep

Personal Experience

After installing process lasso my PC with Core 2 duo, 3GB RAM and windows 10 works likes a new PC i.e. we can say due to ProBalance my PC’s ability to multitask has increased. With a video playing YouTube and 5 more tabs in Microsoft Edge, Microsoft word 2010, task manager and Process Lasso (foreground) opened; the CPU usage is under 20%. OMG!! RAM usage is 56%.

Other important points

1.       Till now Process Lasso has seen 8781 ProBalance restraints. In just today’s half an hour usage, 11 restraints is already added.

2.       It helps me to prevent CPU from sleeping in some apps like windows media player, VLC media player etc.

3.       I was also able to play Need for Speed Most Wanted 2005, which hanged previously.

Conclusion

I would recommend this excellent piece of software to all. It helps to efficiently use our system resources. Download Now!! Have improved experience of windows.