Comments on: Process Tamer – Stop those processes taking all your CPU

By: Toni

Toni — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 17:36:35 +0000

Well it’s all about personal preferences I guess .
I personally like Process Tamer, though I only use an older version which doesn’t have all those settings. It just stopped the computer from freezing. It didn’t tame anything unless it had to. So for example, your cd-burning job would go still at maximum capacity. But you could still get the taskmanager up if something went wrong. And freeze-ups don’t just happen with bad apps. It could be triggered by Windows itself, or if you are browsing the net for example.
That’s something I don’t think is useless in Windows! It should have come standard methinks.

By: relequestual

relequestual — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 19:42:10 +0000

lol. I think i will bring back the forum at some point. Mike C, no hard feelins? all gd fun yeh? dnt wanna seem like a big argument. hate them!

By: Geoffy bibbleton

Geoffy bibbleton — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 12:33:42 +0000

NOW NOW CHILDREN, PLAY NICE

By: MakThePen

MakThePen — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 00:56:37 +0000

I don’t understand arguments pleading for nonsense of CPU controlled by user. I would if it weren’t Windows itself allowing a per-application priority handling, I could if it weren’t some applications themselves proposing to the user to define their priority. The purpose of Process Tamer is a logical issue in providing an automated approach to a built-in philosophy : discuss the philosophy, not the mean! Moreover, Process Tamer keeps an eye in order to avoid power conflicts, and that is no philosophy, but the allegory of a fan : keep things cool, and that is not always properly handled by the OS, unless one rides one app at a time!

By: relequestual

relequestual — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 17:45:09 +0000

umm yeh i see your point. you can however auto set games to have higher priority! naturally you would shut off loads of other apps b4 u play a game, but even so, it does help a bit. i have P$ but less than 1GB of ram, but it rarely uses any more than 80%.
Ok so you really dont like PT. I’m sure lots of people dont like other apps I review. If you like 10 other apps I have reviewed, then I say 9 out of 10 isn’t half bad

By: Mike C

Mike C — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 13:58:21 +0000

I have tries PT and fopund it quite useless or I wouldn’t have commented on it.
My PC is a year old – I run several apps simultaneously but I’ve picked and chosen them carefully over months & years. My PC does not lag.
Process Explorer is by no means “simple” – it even lets you set process priority, if you’re testing an app that’s consuming more resources than you’d care to give it you can set it straight and exit PE. PT does this in real time which means if you want to use it as it’s intended to it’s _constantly_ monitoring the CPU usage for each app – that does consume some resources in a resource critical environment. The only way PT could realistically help you is if you got an extremely resource hungry app freezing your system up. If you simply can’t get rid of that app, it would be time to think about an upgrade or getting rid of it. I dumped Copernic Desktop Search for example coz it was just not worth the resources it used. I could have “tamed” it but that would have been like putting your finger in to plug a leak, I’d rather repair it for good. Anything equal to or better than a P4 + 1GB RAM should let you run several necessary apps simultaneously without any fuss whatsoever. If you’re running something like a game you’ll get a far better performance by shutting off other apps rather than taming them. You won’t have a tamer running in the background either, monitoring each apps CPU usage.

I agree it helping with a crap CPU bit, but how many people have those these days?

By: relequestual

relequestual — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 09:55:00 +0000

if you would have read the previous comment just before yours, you would have seen such an example. and as for buying a computer, i was not talking about with regards to buggy software, i mean as in as much that your processor is rather rubbish to start with, and you cant run many apps at the same time.
im not going to reply to all the parts of your comment, as this would be rather pointless. it dosent look like were going to agree. i see some of what your saying, but fact is that windows ctrl alt del menu can sometimes take up to 10mins plus to come up if your cpu does max out. process tamer is a process explorer, and its by no means elaborate. believe me, its simplicity out does many other process explorers on the web.
you dont like it, then fair enough. lots of people do, and it works for many thousands of people already who love it and couldnt work without it.

have you actually tried this app? another bonus which i didnt mention in the review is a neat setting which enables higher priority on apps that are at the front and being used, while lowering others behind it. for those with crap processors, this is like a god send.

i do agree when you say “A decent computer should do the job _if_ you use the right software and good software is usually worth paying for”, but as you said, there is likely to always be a good, free alternative which wont make the blind bit of difference the majority of people. after all, thats what this site is devoted to!

By: Mike C

Mike C — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 09:04:29 +0000

“Mike C, although Im sure all of us would like to get a better alternative (like buying a better faster computer)”

Buying a new computer coz they’re running buggy software is for people who have more money than brains. A decent computer should do the job _if_ you use the right software and good software is usually worth paying for.

“If you mean a better application, what if its a one of its kind? or just has a one off bug?”

Lets talk facts. Can you give me an instance of one such software? I’ll try to think of a free/cheap alternative.

“Or how about if sometimes you want it to use all the CPU, and sometimes you want to use your machine at the same time, and let it take a little longer?”

A rare scenario but it would help there. But if every bit of CPU power counts I’d think thrice about running yet another app.

“Although I agree with respect to the reason CD writing takes up lots of CPU, I think you rather missed the point. What if I was running a 30-40 min job, and I needed to cancel the burning fast? if your CPU is maxed out, it could take 5-10mins to respond.”

By cancel do you mean ‘abort’? Well a ctrl-alt-delete or a good process manager would take care of that. If you’re talking about lowering the priority of your CD Writing software I’m afraid it’s not me but you who are missing the point.

“The fact this this is really to stop those processes where something has gone horribly wrong. If your a beta tester, you would understand this very clearly. Also if your an AppAholic, chances are you will have many apps that havent been tested properly.”

Wow! – as a “beta tester” and an “appaholic” it’s shocking that you haven’t heard of CTRL-ALT-DEL, or something even better called Process Explorer to end an app gone horribly wrong, you don’t need elaborate 3rd party software to do that! I don’t quite think I’m the one missing the point

Next time your processor max’s out, remember you could of saved yourself the wondering time and the boot time if you had used process tamer

It doesn’t, not over the long run anyway. If something maxes my CPU out I ask myself if it’s worth it, in 99% of the cases it’s not. 1% of the time that it is, the app deserves to get all the power it asks for and it’s best not to mess with it.

By: empyrean

empyrean — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 21:52:02 +0000

Sounds very useful. “Better alternatives” are not always available; Firefox, Opera and IE all hang. Process Tamer sounds like a better alternative to Windows Task Manager, however. Does it work with Vista?

By: relequestual

relequestual — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 20:24:13 +0000

Mike C, although Im sure all of us would like to get a better alternative (like buying a better faster computer), but the fact is, so many people cant afford it. If you mean a better application, what if its a one of its kind? or just has a one off bug? or how about if sometimes you want it to use all the CPU, and sometimes you want to use your machine at the same time, and let it take a little longer?

Although I agree with respect to the reason CD writing takes up lots of CPU, I think you rather missed the point. What if I was running a 30-40 min job, and I needed to cancel the burning fast? if your CPU is maxed out, it could take 5-10mins to respond.

Even further, I think you have really missed the main point. The fact this this is really to stop those processes where something has gone horribly wrong. If your a beta tester, you would understand this very clearly. Also if your an AppAholic, chances are you will have many apps that havent been tested properly.
Either way, this is an app you cant really refuse for the time it could save you. Especially with such low requirements.

Its more about control rather than letting your machine do its own thing if and when it feels like it.

Next time your processor max’s out, remember you could of saved yourself the wondering time and the boot time if you had used process tamer