You can go into Task Manager, find the program that is running and assign it a CPU Priority (right-click on the program name and choose "Set priority").

Your choices are--in descending priority--Realtime, High, Above normal, Normal, Below normal, and Low.

BE CAREFUL: USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!...If you set a process too high, it may not give up enough timeslice for you to even go in and change it back to normal!

Also, I believe this priority is only good for the current process at that particular time. In other words, once you close that program and re-launch it, the CPU priority gets reset to Normal.

If you have multiple CPUs or Cores, you can give a program affinity to any one or all of those CPU/Cores. Right-click on the program name and choose Affinity. Before doing so, check the CPU utilization to see which CPU(s)/Core(s) you want to use. Just like CPU Priority, this setting is only good while the process is running (it gets reset if you restart the program). ---
- PowerDirector 13 Ultimate
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Thanks, will give a try and see if it makes a difference. Intel i7 4770k, 16GB, GTX1060 3GB, Two 240GB SSD, 4TB HD, Sony HDR-TD20V 3D camcorder, Sony SLT-A65VK for still images, Windows 10 Pro, 64bit
Gary Russell -- TN USA

Didn't make any difference. CPU/GPU usage was about the same. Intel i7 4770k, 16GB, GTX1060 3GB, Two 240GB SSD, 4TB HD, Sony HDR-TD20V 3D camcorder, Sony SLT-A65VK for still images, Windows 10 Pro, 64bit
Gary Russell -- TN USA

Quote: is there any setting in Windows that will give PD11 more CPU priority. For example when I render MP4, PD11 uses about 25-35% average CPU and 25-40% of my GPU. I sometimes monitor CPU/GPU using AMD's system monitor software. Mostly out of curiosity. Would think render would be a bit faster if the CPU was utilized more although that may not be the case.

In my opinion the CPU does not work 100% because PD11 uses the video card and its GPU. Other sofware uses 100% CPU and neither did this by converting video faster.
The issue of priority for a particular program in my view only works when you have several programs running, just open PD11 it uses all CPU you need, if you have another program running oh yes will share the CPU in this case the priority may be determined. AMD-FX 8350 / 8GB DDR3
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Windows 7-64 / PD16 Ultimate

In my simple test, PD11 use either very efficiently. I used another to render the same clip to MP4 and it utilized 80% GPU and abt 65%. Was definitely faster than PD11 too. Intel i7 4770k, 16GB, GTX1060 3GB, Two 240GB SSD, 4TB HD, Sony HDR-TD20V 3D camcorder, Sony SLT-A65VK for still images, Windows 10 Pro, 64bit
Gary Russell -- TN USA