SketchUp + Layout: Setting Processor Affinity

juju

It seems like setting processor affinity isn’t quite such a simple task. I’m on Win10Pro.

Setting process affinity via the Task Manager only works for the current session, if you close the program and launch it again, you have to set it again. Thus not really a productive option.

I tried the method of setting affinity via command line of a shortcut to the executable, that way it would be set permanently every time I start the program up. I tried a number of permutations, following instructions form the Microsoft website and other sources. It didn’t work.

Then I searched the net for apps, there are some and below some feedback on what I tried:

RunWithAffinity: This dates back to 2011 with no newer version available. The interface is easy enough and I was hopeful. It created the shortcuts automatically, but they didn’t work.
Bill’s Process Manager: This dates back to 2014 with no newer version available. Original language (and only help file language) is French, but interface is available in English as well. The interface is simple enough and was easy enough to navigate and set affinities. Unfortunately, it didn’t work.
Process Lasso: This is current and actively developed, comes in 32-bit and 64-bit variants and a Freemium and Pro (paid) version, the paid version obviously has some additional features that may/may not be useful to the average user. The interface is intimidating, but looking around carefully and not fiddling with any other things other than the affinity of SketchUp and Layout was successful. Be careful though, this software is quite powerful and you could end up breaking things if you don’t know what you’re doing (ie. messing around with priorities, etc.) but affinity profiles should be safe enough.

So, using Process Lasso, I’ve set CPU affinity of SU + LO to “Single Threaded Performance” which basically sets affinity for any of the physical cores and disables ability to run on HyperThreaded cores. I’m not sure if there would be a further benefit of setting these to specific physical cores, but if doing so will probably be wise to set them to different physical cores for the times when using both SU + LO simultaneously.