W2K Performance Options

[Jason]

Does it matter whether or not the Performance Option (MS
Knowledge Base Article - 259025) is set to Application or
Background services if you have many processes running
(i.e 50 processes).
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Navigate to the following to view settings:

Control Panel,System,Advanced,Performance Options

Application Response Choices:
- Application
- Background Services
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A third party software manufacturer is suggesting that I
set this option to Background Services. The application
that I am running communicates via the serial port to a
real time battery analyzer. From what I read, all
processes are given the same time slice to service the
threads if set to background services. Because my Laptop
is running many processes the time slice to service the
threads would be quite small (I am not that clear on the
theory). I think setting performance to Application would
be better since the time slice alloted for the foreground
application would be longer. Any Thoughts?

 

[Guest]

Would you like the backgrounce processes to do their stuff
first or would you like your mouse ann keyboard to react
immidiately if thet are used?

 

[Jason]

Good Question,
I want to ensure that serial port communication between
the serial port and the external device is a high
priority. I have achieved this by adjusting the TX/RX FIFO
Buffers to 1. I also want the Software application that is
capturing this realtime data to be set for a higher
priority over the other 50 processes running in the
background. I think that this can be achieved through the
performance options.

The mouse and keyboard reactivity does not have to be
immediate. I want the foreground application (Application
in the active window communicating to external device) to
be updated immediately with data being sent from the
external device.

The application requests an update from the device every
second. The application then takes the results that it
receives and logs it and at the same time graphs it.

With the little bit of background I have provided, maybe
you can suggest what I should be doing. I have read a lot
about performance options but what isn't very clear to me
is that will it make a big difference which performance
option you choose especially when there are many processes
running?

Thanks