handbrake 1.6.1 cpu priority

[orionquest]

Hey all,

I'm using the latest handbrake 1.6.1 with monterery. I vaguely remember in a previous version there was a CPU priority toggle under the preferences advance. It's no longer there. This was great to have handbrake not use all the cpu resources and you could still do stuff while it was working. Doesn't seem to be available anymore. It's still in the doc's. But I also found a thread about Apple changing the task threader or something, so maybe the feature had to be removed on the Mac version of HB.

Anyone else confirm this?

 

[bogdanw]

You can use hardware encoding - H.264 (VideoToolbox) https://handbrake.fr/docs/en/latest/technical/video-videotoolbox.html

 

[orionquest]

You can use hardware encoding - H.264 (VideoToolbox) https://handbrake.fr/docs/en/latest/technical/video-videotoolbox.html

How does that solve what I am looking for? In the notes it even states it's common for 100% cpu utilzation.
Plus I prefer software encode the results are better.

 

[bogdanw]

No, the option is not there in Handbrake 1.6.1
The last mention of “priority” for macOS seems to be in 1.3.0
“Updated priority for low-priority threads on macOS to avoid potential stalls in future macOS” https://github.com/HandBrake/HandBrake/releases/tag/1.3.0

 

[orionquest]

No, the option is not there in Handbrake 1.6.1
The last mention of “priority” for macOS seems to be in 1.3.0
“Updated priority for low-priority threads on macOS to avoid potential stalls in future macOS” https://github.com/HandBrake/HandBrake/releases/tag/1.3.0

Thanks, yeah that' what I thought it was around 1.3.0 when it was available.
Bummer it was really helpful.

 

[arw]

Maybe manually setting/reducing the process priority of Handbrake via nice/renice is a feasible workaround for you with similar behaviour?
Get the process ID of Handbrake via terminal ps -ef
Then execute renice -n "20" -p the-PID-of-Handbrake-from-above
+20 is the least possible priority, -20 the maximum
It should also be possible to automate this process: https://superuser.com/questions/285355/how-to-permanently-renice-a-process-on-mac-os-x-or-ios-etc

 

[bogdanw]

Some alternatives:
AppPolice https://github.com/AppPolice/AppPolice
App Tamer https://www.stclairsoft.com/AppTamer/

Shutter Encoder https://www.shutterencoder.com/en/
“Set number of used threads
Allows you to set the number of threads for your cpu according to FFmpeg capabilities.
By default 0 use all available threads, but using the value 1 can preserve CPU loading to not freeze your computer.” https://www.shutterencoder.com/documentation.html

 

[galad]

There was never such option in the Mac version.
The CPU scheduler should be smart enough to avoid starving other apps, what are you are doing that requires manual adjustment? Unless you are playing a game I never found it slow down things to much.

 

[orionquest]

There was never such option in the Mac version.
The CPU scheduler should be smart enough to avoid starving other apps, what are you are doing that requires manual adjustment? Unless you are playing a game I never found it slow down things to much.

Positive there was, it was under preferences. It was also worded very amusing like "play nice" background tasks etc.

I prefer the software encode over the hardare toolbox, when I tested both, software always produced better results. And I could dial it in better to squash video into smaller file sizes without drastic visual loss. Sometimes I queue up a batch of encodes like 16 files, and generally if I do stuff in the foreground like web, email etc. it's ok. But when I have to process images using Photoshop or illustrator those apps struggle without more access to the CPU, even there Ui becomes laggy. The CPU is pegged at 99%.