One of the oldest tricks for optimizing a system is tweaking the overall priority of each process. The individual benefits are minimal, but on a computer with very limited resources, the cumulative effect can mean the difference between a decent experience and a PC that drags itself along the road. Process Lasso has been on the market for years as the number one tool for managing both CPU priority and affinity in resident processes.
The Quest for Efficiency
It's always a good idea to try to raise efficiency levels in a computer. Every user develops their own techniques over the years, whether by replacing programs, tweaking basic operating system parameters, or watching memory consumption. Many think it's a lost cause, and that's exactly what manufacturers want, but personally I believe they should suffer a little more if they want our money. Another way to optimize a computer is to manage processes by assigning priority and affinity. While Windows lets us do both with Task Manager, the number of processes tends to be too large. That's when Process Lasso appears.
A Classic with Advanced Features
Process Lasso is truly a classic. I used it for years with Pentium III systems and an Athlon XP that I remember fondly, so its current state is enviably stable. Its job is relatively simple, but the truth is that it's a very advanced tool. Besides setting priorities and affinities for specific processes arbitrarily, Process Lasso can also reduce memory consumption per-process (and not globally, which is completely useless), activate a game mode that increases attention on a game's main process, and balance CPU load so unwanted spikes don't occur.
The Realistic Picture
Despite all its options, there's a detail we can't deny: Process Lasso faces a different reality. Most of the problems it solves have been rooted out by increased hardware resources. In other words, Process Lasso's benefits will be much more noticeable on computers with very humble specifications, which these days take on secondary roles. To this we must add the price of the Pro version: $33 with one year of updates, or $49 if you want lifetime updates. The freeware version works very well, but its own developer admits it: Process Lasso free will become nagware after a few days.
