Boost CPU Performance in Windows with Project Mercury

[Batu69]

More likely than not, you have a multi-core CPU in your notebook or desktop computer. The older single core processors are a thing of past. The newer multiple core processors provide you with so much power but the Windows operating system does not allow you to control which application gets more power. And in addition, Windows also tries to save a little bit of power by putting some of the available CPU cores in the standby. To unleash all the possible power from your multi-core CPU, you can use the free Project Mercury software.

 

Project Mercury helps you tweak your Windows’ computer’s settings so that you can make the maximum use of the CPU power available. You can use it make all the CPU cores running all the time and to prioritize one application over another. It is a portable tool, so you do not have to install anything and can use it on any Windows PC by launching it from a USB flash disk.

 

When Project Mercury is running and you launch any other application, it is assigned the highest process priority so that it can run as smoothly as possible. When you put the same application in the background, its process priority is reduced so that more of the system resources can be made available to the applications in the foreground.

 

 

Apart from the automated memory and CPU usage management, it can also be used to forcibly clear the memory taken up by all the applications in the background or the ones that are minimized to the taskbar. For this you can right-click on the Project Mercury’s system tray icon and choose Clear Memory.

 

In the settings for the Project Mercury, you can make multi-core optimizations, make it reduce resources claimed by an application when it is minimized and make it boost the PC performance by disabling CPU core parking. You can also choose one of the templates like Desktop, Server, Multi-tasking, Server etc. These templates are useful to automatically choose proper settings for your PC depending on how you use your computer.

 

 

Conclusion: Project Mercury can be used to optimize the Windows settings to make the most out of your multi-core CPU. It can automatically manage the CPU and system memory consumption to make programs run much more smoothly.

 

Project Mercury

 

Article source

[Petrovic]

Project Mercury is a tiny portable program for Microsoft Windows devices to improve the responsiveness in heavy load situations.

 

The application has been designed specifically for situations where you are running multiple programs on the system that use a lot of system resources.

 

Think of playing a computer game in fullscreen, running messaging apps in the background, a Torrent client, web browser with lots of tabs, or any other program that uses a good chunk of the system's resources.

 

This is achieved partially by increasing the process priority of the foreground application automatically when Project Mercury is run. While that is part of what the application offers, there is a lot more to it than that.

 

Note: The program displays a nag screen at times stating that it will go away in the donator's version. This seems to happen only when you modify preferences though.

Project Mercury

 

The program is available as a 32-bit and 64-bit version for Windows. Simply download it and run it to get started.

It is recommended to run Project Mercury with elevated rights. While you don't have to do it to start the program, it can only work its magic on other programs with elevated rights if you do so.

 

To run it with administrative privileges, right-click on the downloaded file and select "run as administrator" from the context menu.

Project Mercury launches and adds an icon to the Windows System Tray. Right-click on the icon and select Settings to configure the program.

Please note that it is not necessary to configure it if you are fine with the default settings. It is recommended though to check the settings at least once as you may find useful preferences there that you may want to make use of.

 

All preferences are displayed on a single page (that you see on the screenshot above).

Only a handful of preferences are enabled by default: the automatic increase of the priority level of the active application to above normal, the automatic lowering of the cpu priority on minimize, and the 0ms Windows System Timer interval.

 

The following options are provided besides those (all marked with a * are recommended by the author of the program) :

• No Hyper-Threading conflicts -- Disables every other core the focused program uses to avoid reduced performance from threading conflicts.
• No multicore stutter -- May prevent stutter for programs that use only a single core even though multiple cores are available.
• Reduce memory on minimize -- When enabled, tries to free memory. Forces programs to use the swap file to free up physical memory.
• Excessive mode -- Monitors process performance. Will reduce the priority of any process that uses more than 50% CPU to below normal.
• Windows CPU slice (permanent) -- Defines how Windows schedules and handles CPU time. May be set to default, desktop,server, multitasking or gamer.
• Disable Core Parking -- Core Parking is a power saving feature. The feature may impact performance negatively when you run multi-threaded software according to the developer. Only tested on Intel processors by the author. May yield performance increases of up to 20% for affected programs.
• Windows Fast React -- Makes switching between application windows faster and smoother.
• Disable standby on CPU load -- Disables standby power saving mode if the CPU load is 8% or more.
• Balloon top on priority adjustment -- This displays a notification whenever the priority is adjusted.
• Start as Administrator -- Will launch the program with elevated rights automatically when selected (which triggers an UAC prompt on start).

Article source

[Batu69]

Topic has been merged.

[pc71520]

Let's see how they fixed the crash issue...

[rushdie]

What would happen if this and Process Lasso were to be run simultaneously? Can this be done without causing troubles to the pc? Would anybody recommend it?