I'm looking for a capability similar to Windows System Resource Manager to allocate minimum percentages of processor time to specific processes, but on constrained non-server Windows platforms such as CE and XP (Vista/7 are not an option here).
For example, I'd like to assign minimum 60% CPU and 25% I/O bandwidth to a foreground full screen video game and a minimum 25% CPU and 50% I/O bandwidth to a heavily multithreaded networked background app, in such a way that neither app experiences latency spikes: the game maintains a uniform stable frame rate and doesn't have perceptible jerks or mini-freezes while the service responds to messages promptly, without modification to or cooperation from either application to yield appropriately; this unfortunately means that simple priority setting doesn't work because either an inappropriate CPU time balance or outright starvation can occur. Am I dreaming here? :-)