How can I limit FFMpeg CPU usage?

Question

I am calling FFMpeg inside a C# Windows Forms application. Since it uses so much CPU (always above 90%), none of my threads can continue working. Is there a way to limit this CPU usage?

I've tried to set Process.PriorityClass to PriorityClass.BelowNormal but this totally blocked the ffmpeg process.

I am sure there is a way to do this since I see a lot of programs that utilize ffmpeg.

Please help.

Answer 1

You can't limit FFMpeg to a percentage of CPU use, but you can set the -threads parameter on your FFMpeg call, if you have 4 cores try set it to -threads 2 that should limit you to around 50% CPU.

Another solution might be to lower the priority on your FFMpeg process, to something lower than your applications.