Backgammon Snowie

Snowie

Running in low priority

From:   lmfback
Address:   peter.backgren@pp.inet.fi
Date:   8 October 2004
Subject:   Snowie Low Priority setting
Forum:   rec.games.backgammon
Google:   MPG.1bd0cde78fcf846e98995a@news.lmf.ericsson.se

Wow. I finally found a way to make Snowie run using less resources so that my entire machine isn't clogged. Ok, I used a manual way of doing this before but this is way better. Works on 2000/XP (at least). If you want to analyze matches so that Snowie doesn't use up all CPU slowing your machine to a grinding halt do the following. 1) Right click on the Snowie icon 2) Choose Properties 3) In the first field it will say something like this: C:\Program Files\SnowieGroup\Snowie4\Snowie4.exe Copy this somewhere in case you mess up and want to go back to the original ;-) 4) Change the string to: CMD.EXE /C "start /low C:\Progra~1\SnowieGroup\Snowie4\Snowie4.exe" If you like the effect you can always say hi to me here... [Some tech info most people should not need] If you look at properties again it will say something like: C:\WINNT\system32\CMD.EXE /C "start /low C:\Progra~1\SnowieGroup \Snowie4\Snowie4.exe" CMD.EXE fills itself to the correct path automatically. The reason we use "progra~1" instead of "program files" is that quotes fail to work and only open up the snowie directory in a command window. Obviously this works for any program. Use "start /c for more options". [end of tech] Eskimo

Gregg Cattanach writes:

This is a very good tip that I've used for a long time. Snowie doesn't 'play fair' with the CPU at normal priority and often just grabs too many cycles to let anything else work worth a dang. I've done the same but use /belownormal instead of /low, but it probably gives similar results. Unfortunately, it doesn't work with GnuBG, because something happens right when it starts, it begins with belownormal priority, but then it seems to spawn a new gnubg.exe process with Normal priority. I have to use the task manager to ratchet it down back to belownormal. My exact Snowie 'target' string looks like this: C:\WINDOWS\system32\CMD.EXE /C Start "Snowie" /BELOWNORMAL /d"C:\Program Files\SnowieGroup\Snowie4" "C:\Program Files\SnowieGroup\Snowie4\Snowie4.exe" (the /d is the starting directory definition. Program Files works OK if you use the quotes as listed. Change WINDOWS to WINNT if running Windows2000 instead of WindowsXP.) Gregg C.

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