virtualbox.org

I think it would be beneficial to add a "Set Process Priority" option to the "Machine" menu. It is often useful when running multiple machines, or even a CPU intensive process on a virtual machine while still using the host system for other taks. The exact method used to implement the feature would vary a little between hosts, but is simple on most OSes. Currently, it is not easy to tell which ProcessID belongs to which Machine in the host OS, which makes it difficult to manually set the priority. Since the VirtualBox hypervisor knows the ProcessID for each machine, it should be pretty simple to implement, and having a GUI option to perform the function would make it a lot easier to do.

mechtrader wrote:It is often useful when running multiple machines, or even a CPU intensive process on a virtual machine while still using the host system for other taks.

Are you familiar with the execution cap option in VM Settings » System » Processor » Execution Cap? Wouldn't that cover your needs up to a point?

Plus if you think about it, it's not the greatest idea in the world to emulate hardware interrupts at a lower priority. Something's not going to be happy in the guest when your Solitaire takes the CPU from that hard-drive write operation...