HandBrake

Hello. My question is essentially in the title. Lately I've tried out hardware monitoring and noticed that Handbrake is using pretty much all the available processor resources when it's encoding. Is there some option to set a limit the usage to a certain percentage, for example, so the processor runs cooler? Right now encoding a bluray movie is a bit like running a stress test for 15 hours - the temperatures rise to the BIOS-set maximum safe level and the system starts throttling down the clock speeds periodically to keep it there. While that's not exactly only a Handbrake problem (according to the net, my processor shouldn't run that hot even under maximum stress), I'd like to know if the processor usage could be controlled as a temporary solution now.

System: Windows 7 64bit
Handbrake version: 1.0.1 64bit.

Thanks in advance.

Google "Set process affinity on windows".

HandBrake doesn't have it built-in as there shouldn't really be any need for it. We by default use a low system priority to minimise the effect on multi-tasking

However, you should invest time in solving your cooling issues. It may be as simple as cleaning out the vents/fans.

Yes, I'm already looking into it. I'm planning to clean the computer and the processor cooler thoroughly and reinstall it with new thermal paste.

Setting the affinity didn't really work that well. I suppose the processor wasn't as hot overall, but the system still throttled down the cores with high load, so the encoding time took a sort of double hit. Thanks anyway for the suggestion.

Would reducing the X264 setting for threads used help? I believe it defaults to 1.5X the number of available cores you have. I'm not really up on how that effects everything

Not going to make much difference since HandBrake has a large number of threads of it's own along with libav too. Neither of which you can control.

Affinity is the best way to control usage.

On cooling issues, you might want to also look at getting the hot air out of the case. My AMD machine's CPU temps drops 5-8C if I turn on a second case fan.

Generic machines typically don't do proper air flow design. On a lot of better-designed machines, the CPU fan is ducted straight to the outside, so that heat doesn't collect around it. On any machine where I'm worried about the CPU getting hot, there are intake AND exhaust fans on the case, to get the hot air away from the CPU. The CPU cooler just has to get the heat away from the chip.

Download Process Explorer from Microsoft's website. With it, you can easily set both processor affinity and priority of threads.

You can do so via normal task manager. No need for a 3rd party app for this.

It's not a 3rd part app. It's from Microsoft, and it does a lot more than Task Manager.