System Monitor - Nice%?
 

Howdy,

I tried looking this up on google, but "nice" is too broad a word for it to find anything useful. When I look on my System Monitor, there is a parameter for every processor that is Nice%. What does this mean? Thanks so much.

a process is "nice" when it is given a lower priority than normal, so other processess are allowed to take it's resources if needed. the "nice" command is used to start programs with a lower (or alternatively higher if a negative number is provided) priority. the renice command will adjust the priority of an existing process.

Cool, thanks acid. I think all my processes are mean right now =P
I guess this is useful for when a system has limited memory?

Its useful to prevent one process monopolizing all the CPU time. Eg. all those Seti@Home type applications where you have something running in the background using CPU time when the machine is idle use nice to make sure they don't slow the machine down when other processes are running. Windows has a similar option (see the task manager on NT/2000/XP).