Windows 10: Disable stealing CPU/GPU cycles from other apps when a window is in focus

Hello all,


I'm running 2 instances of the same GPU-bound python script. The editor I'm using (IDLE), starts each script inside a terminal console and the scripts open up their own window to view a camera feed (using OpenCV). Here is what I observe:

• When no window that show a camera feed is in focus, both apps run at the same speed, i.e. the frame rate is ~7.5fps.
• When I click on any of these two windows, its frame rate is suddenly bumped up to ~12fps, and the other's drops down to ~4fps.

Again, when I click on any other window, both run at the same frame rate. I changed the priority in Task Manager to high and low, but the performance is the same and my issue remains. This is an issue because I need to do things (video tracking/recording, store to DB) that require a sustained, near constant speed, and a random user-induced change in frame rate of a factor of 1-3 is unacceptable. Is there a way to disable this effect? Maybe by switching an option somewhere in the Windows settings to not change a window's priority while in focus? Or maybe invoke the script in the Windows shell/powershell with a setting that makes an app immune to changes in CPU allocation when in/out of focus?


FYI, here is a summary of my configuration:

• OS: Windows 10 64-bit Pro v1803
• CPU: Intel I9-7920X@2.9GHz (CPU usage: 100%)
• RAM: 64GB (memory usage: 45%)
• GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080Ti (GPU usage: 5%)
• CUDA 10.1/CUDNN 7.6.3.30
• Nvidia Driver 436.48 (release date 10/01/2019)
• OpenPose 1.5.1
• OpenCV 4.1.1
• python 3.6.8
• Video source: 2 USB cameras, 1920x1080 @ 30fps

Thank you in advance!

Nicolas

:)

 

Disabling Apps/Programs from Focus Stealing


This is a general inquiry about how to disable specific programs' ability to steal focus/move their windows to front in windows 10. There used to be a registry you could edit to disable this I believe, but was removed for Windows 7(?) and apparently editing it (I've read [1]) doesn't affect anything.

Is there some way to edit a program's permission's or the registry or another setting to prevent either all programs or select programs from stealing focus etc? (This is for programs that don't give you the option of turning it off in their settings.)

Thanks for the help

[1] Preventing applications from stealing focus

 

Disabling Apps/Programs from Focus Stealing


Looking at this a slightly different way, you can use a 3rd party utility to expose a function to keep Windows on top. There are a number of of older utilities that did that which don't work now, and some that do. Some added 'Send to back' as well.

'Keep on top' is something I use quite frequently - you can set two Windows 'on top' and so prioritise those two as well.

Presently I use Actual Window Manager (they also do Actual Title Bar - which just has title bar functions and is cheaper, being a subset). I got the former 'free' (legitimately).




Here you can see added buttons- the pin is 'on top' and changes when the window is pinned 'on top'.




Here you can see 'Keep on top' added to rt click title bar options. However this gives no visible indication of the window being on top. These options are a combination of those from Moo0 Window menu plus (which is redundant, given the other program) and those from Actual Window Manager.

 

System and compressed memory eating CPU cycles

• Did it, nothing found.
• Already tried that before posting.
• It's Windows 10, so it's pretty much always up to date. Regardless, I tried again, nothing new.

It's funny how being idle lowers CPU consumption to a few %, while simply moving the mouse skyrockets the resource steal (and the faster you move, the more cycles it uses).