Adjusting HENC priority

[DaneClark]

Is there any way to make it so that the default priority is always set to highest? My computer has this issue where HENC gradually slows down with each pass, and the longer I leave my computer on the higher the chance it will be all "locked up" when I come back to it. I would NOT had to have just restarted a 6-hour job that was almost done if it weren't for the fact that I have to set the priority manually on each pass

[jagabo]

Running a process at high priority doesn't increase its CPU usage unless there is another process competing for CPU time. So, if there is no other CPU intensive process running, increasing the priority of the encoding process will not make it run faster.

Running a user process at highest priority is asking for trouble. That should be reserved for operating system tasks, device drivers, etc. If you have to run another CPU intensive task while encoding, and that task is taking up too much of your CPU time, you are usually better off reducing the priority of that other task, not increasing the priority of the rendering task.

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms685100(v=vs.85).aspx

By the way, I usually run my encoders at lowest or idle priority (on a quad core CPU). That leaves the computer very usable for web browsing, email, watching videos, etc I don't care that it takes a few percent longer to finish the rendering.

If your computer is set up properly idle CPU usage should be around 1 or 2 percent (check with Task Manager), leaving the rest available for encoding. If you are seeing more than that you need to figure out why that is and "fix" it. If I remember correctly, HCEnc doesn't scale much beyond two threads so it cannot itself use all the CPU on a 3 or more core/thread CPU. Of course, if you're encoding a complicated AVS script with multithreaded AviSynth you may get more CPU usage (be sure to add Distributor() to the end of your AVS script).

If you find HCHen running slower and slower it's likely you computer is overheating and the CPU is being throttled back. And locking up is another symptom of overheating. If that's the case you need better cooling. Check your CPU temps while encoding.