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Hi,

I don't know if this is a Windows (XP Pro) issue or a newspro issue, but is it possible to implement a feature where Newspro continues downloading from newsservers when you play a game. For me Newspro now pauses all downloads when I play a game and only continues when I exit the game.
Thanks!

I remember this was the case sometimes in Windows ME, but I have never seen it happen with Windows XP. Essentially the OS assigns resources, and when NewsPro goes in to the background Windows ME would lower the priority and not properly allow the program to download at full speed. I was not aware of this happening in XP, however, so I'm not sure what to recommend.

it's possible that on lower end machines XP requires all available (CPU/disk i/o ?) resources to run the game and therefore halts newspro.

try to uncheck 'below normal priority for network threads' in properties->tasks, so they will run at normal priority, probably the game suppresses all threads running with below normal priority.

I dont know about XP but windows 2K still offers the fine 'dos' command 'start' wich allows a user to start a program with a different priority. I use it to set my videoplayer priority to max while still downloading with NewsPro (to prevent hickups). Maybe u can use it to start newspro?

> start /?
Starts a separate window to run a specified program or command.

START ["title"] [/Dpath] [/I] [/MIN] [/MAX] [/SEPARATE | /SHARED]
[/LOW | /NORMAL | /HIGH | /REALTIME | /ABOVENORMAL | /BELOWNORMAL]
[/WAIT] [/B] [command/program]
[parameters]

"title" Title to display in window title bar.
path Starting directory
B Start application without creating a new window. The
application has ^C handling ignored. Unless the application
enables ^C processing, ^Break is the only way to interrupt
the application
I The new environment will be the original environment passed
to the cmd.exe and not the current environment.
MIN Start window minimized
MAX Start window maximized
SEPARATE Start 16-bit Windows program in separate memory space
SHARED Start 16-bit Windows program in shared memory space
LOW Start application in the IDLE priority class
NORMAL Start application in the NORMAL priority class
HIGH Start application in the HIGH priority class
REALTIME Start application in the REALTIME priority class
ABOVENORMAL Start application in the ABOVENORMAL priority class
BELOWNORMAL Start application in the BELOWNORMAL priority class
WAIT Start application and wait for it to terminate
command/program
If it is an internal cmd command or a batch file then
the command processor is run with the /K switch to cmd.exe.
This means that the window will remain after the command
has been run.

If it is not an internal cmd command or batch file then
it is a program and will run as either a windowed application
or a console application.

parameters These are the parameters passed to the command/program

no actually it is not needed.

some games enter infinte loop at normal priority, thus preventing all threads with lower priority to run at all, although it is not a correct way of implementation.

but if you make the worker thread priority normal all will run.

i'll change the default to normal in the future or remove the option completely, the worker threads doesn't consume much processor time.

Just increase the priority of newspro to above normal.
Works all the time for me

question 1) where in win xp can i set high priority for newspro?

question 2):
in windows xp one can change the following settings:
processor use: optimalize for programs or background services

memory use: use optimalize for programs or systemcache

what is best to use for newspro?

ok, i know now ho set the priority for newspro.

so question 1 is answered.

Sorry for the late reply, I was away for a while.
I will try with changing the priority of newspro to above normal. The first option Alex mentioned did not work for me.
Thanks.