A specific App needs more CPU

In previous systems one could allocate more memory to specific apps, but not in OSX - You might want to up your memory, your post doesn't show how much you have. Have you checked activity monitor to see if Eye TV is in fact what is hogging your CPU?
Miriam

More RAM could help - or the problem could be hard drive speed - does it skip mainly when you are openning other apps or writing files? if you can add a seceond hard drive and point the TV software to it as working space that could help. Or there might be a setting for resolution or frame rate in the software.

The way I control Safari is to close it after a couple of days (or more frequently) and it then becomes less of a hog for a while. You can also empty its caches frequently and disable the site icon caches. All this will help tame Safari.
Miriam

There is no way to change the memory allocation in OSX. That is handled completely by the system.

Miriam is on the right track. Safari uses a lot of resources, not just memory. You are probably, when surfing with Safari, using Java, Flash, and other technologies that are all trying to share CPU time and memory. Something has to suffer. I imagine that EyeTV uses its fair share of resources also.

You also have to remember that you are using VRAM from your video card to make all of this happen. Maybe that is the weak link. How much VRAM do you have? Maybe you should investigate a more powerful video card.

Hi William

One of the main reasons I stopped using Safari is because it is a real Hog. Perhaps you could improve the situation by switching to Opera instead, which uses much less resources

http://www.opera.no/products/desktop/?platform=mac


Matthew Whiting

Any other ideas? Surely Apple has a hook in the OS to
allow modification of priority etc?

This is a Unix based system. If you want to modify it the way you are asking you will have to learn Unix programming and reprogram the kernel yourself. The system is designed to allocate ram without user intervention. Period.

Perhaps you should post your question on the Unix forum and see if one of the brilliant people there can teach you how to be a programmer.

You cannot easily (if at all) adjust the raw percentage of CPU time given to a certain app. You can adjust a process's CPU scheduling "priority" using the unix command 'nice'.

"an app" is just a pretty Macintosh cover on one (or more) normal unix processes. You can use 'ps' to see what processes are running and read the 'nice' manpage to learn how to alter a process's priority. This setting, as controlled by the 'nice' command, applies to a process that is already running (or, with difficulty, at the moment it begins). There are ways to have a program automatically lower its own priority, but you'd need to have access to the source code for said program, which you don't have.

Why not just try a different browser and see if it helps with the problem?
Since Safari is the problem, try a different one and see if it solves the issue. Firefox is supposed to be good and it is free. Seems lika lot less trouble than trying to hack your system.