So I found this after somehow not finding it for years and looking for something exactly to do what it does for years. It is called Process Hacker 2 and it does what it would suggest. It is basically Process Explorer except it allows you to 'hack' the process priorities more. Unfortunately it doesn't allow you to change the GPU priority (yet?), but it does allow you to change a lot. For instance, I have set it to force boinc.exe, boincmgr.exe, the specific conhost.exe's that are started by acemd.exe and boinc.exe, and acemd.exe to always start in high priority for the CPU, the I/O, and the page file access. CPU and I/O high priority would help a lot more for the MDs than the ACEMDs I would think, since the ACEMDs pool the CPU and I/O every 3 minute, I think, to save the work (at least by default, I think it is 3600 seconds), but the MDs work with the CPU more intensively and access the GPU less, like ACEMDs in reverse, from what I can tell, so they would get a better boost from this I think. But either way, with these settings, I may shave a few minutes off of the work units off of a 9 hour run, but every little bit helps, right? Or do you think something like this, even if it works is not worth it? (Note: I have seen 2 errors in computing since I have been using it, both on the laptop running short tasks, BUT they were both also exactly the times I had to unplug or turn off the laptop. Once for construction and I had to turn the power off and got an error on tasks on the laptop and the PC, and the other time, I had to move the laptop and it was on and off a few times in a few minutes, trying to set up a video to a projector that I had to keep rebooting till it recognized. So I totally blame the errors on those instances and not this program.)

It is found at http://processhacker.sourceforge.net/
And there is probably more that can be "hacked" and done through it, but I really tested a few settings on on computer and saw a small difference, then rolled it out to the rest with BOINC on them. Please let me know if this is worth the install and if it is worth it for the extra speed or push, please use it too. - Mike

---

1 Corinthians 9:16 "For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!"
Ephesians 6:18-20, please ;-)
http://tbc-pa.org

Be careful with changing process priorities, you can easily make your OS unusable.
There are many tools to do it, you can do it even from command line.
The other factor which could increase the efficacy of the client is the CPU affinity of its executable. By default the executable is set to run on any of the CPU's cores. Changing the core on which the executable runs takes some time. If you set it to run on its own separate core, it could gain some performance, especially on Core 2 Quad (and their respective Xeon variants) processors, which are actually two Core 2 Duo chips in a single package, thus have their own separate caches. Switching over a process to a core on a different chip takes longer.
Using a single core for 100% could cause the chip's surface heat up differently, shortening its lifespan. But as far as I know, crunchers don't have unused CPU cores. :)
There is a tool to change the priority and the affinity of a process:
http://affinitychanger.sourceforge.net/
However the impact of the WDDM overhead is much more severe than it could be neutralized by these practices.

Thanks!