autoPriority/README.md

autoPriority

Monitors process memory usage on Windows and automatically adjusts CPU priority: promotes memory-heavy processes to HIGH and demotes everything else to NORMAL. Optionally enters Game Mode when a process exceeds a higher threshold, boosting it to HIGH and setting all other processes to IDLE.

Windows only.

How it works

Normal mode

Every scan interval the program iterates over all running processes:

RSS vs -mem	Current priority	Action
≥ threshold	anything except HIGH	→ HIGH (logged as PROMOTE)
≥ threshold	already HIGH	skip
< threshold	ABOVE_NORMAL, HIGH, or REALTIME	→ NORMAL (logged as DEMOTE)
< threshold	NORMAL, BELOW_NORMAL, or IDLE	skip

Game mode (-game-mem)

When any process reaches or exceeds the -game-mem threshold:

1. That process → HIGH (logged as GAME)
2. All other processes → IDLE (original priorities saved)
3. Log: GAME MODE ON

When all such processes close:

1. All processes that were demoted during game mode are restored to their original priority (logged as RESTORE)
2. GAME MODE OFF logged
3. Normal mode resumes — priorities recalculated by -mem rules

If SetPriorityClass or OpenProcess fails for a process (e.g., anti-cheat protection, system processes), the process is added to an in-memory exclusion list and never touched again (logged as BLOCK). Blocked processes are still measured for RSS each scan — if a blocked process exceeds -game-mem, it triggers game mode without attempting to change its priority. When the process exits, it is automatically removed from the list.

On shutdown, all processes demoted during game mode are restored to their saved original priority.

Build

Requires Go 1.26+.

# Standard build (with console window)
go build -o autopriority.exe .

# Background build (no console, minimal size)
go build -ldflags="-H windowsgui -s -w" -o autopriority.exe .

Usage

autopriority [flags]

Flag	Default	Description
-mem	512M	Memory threshold (e.g. 512M, 1G, 2048M)
-game-mem	2G	Game threshold (e.g. 2G, 4G). Must be > -mem. 0 = disabled
-interval	1 minute	Scan interval (min 10s)
-dry-run	false	Log only, don't change priority

Examples:

# Run with 1 GB threshold, scanning every 30 seconds
autopriority -mem=1G -interval=30s

# Run with defaults (512M threshold, 2G game threshold)
autopriority

# Game mode: normal threshold 512M, game threshold 4G
autopriority -mem=512M -game-mem=4G

# Dry run — log decisions without changing anything
autopriority -dry-run

Log

Log is always written to %TEMP%\autopriority.log. A new log file is created on each run (previous log is deleted).

Log entries:

Prefix	Meaning
PROMOTE	Priority raised to HIGH (normal mode)
DEMOTE	Priority lowered to NORMAL (normal mode)
GAME DETECT	Process first detected as exceeding game-mem threshold
GAME	Process set to HIGH or IDLE (game mode)
GAME MODE ON	Game mode activated
GAME MODE OFF	Game mode deactivated — processes restored
BLOCK	OpenProcess or SetPriorityClass failed; process added to exclusion list
RESTORE	Process restored to original/saved priority (game mode exit or shutdown)
[DRY-RUN]	Would change priority (dry-run mode)

Auto-start

Open Win+R, type shell:startup, and press Enter. Then place a shortcut to autopriority.exe in the folder that opens.

Dependencies

None. Uses only Windows API (kernel32, psapi) via raw syscall.