Soft realtime on windows OS- what to consider?

What consideration should we have (both software and hardware) when we build a soft-realtime application on windows : a task that occur开发者_如何学编程s every XXX milliseconds and that should be completed within YYY milliseconds. (Altough consequences of missing a deadline are bad, the application can still recover from missed deadline - hence the "soft" realtime).

A few questions that already comes to my mind: Are there registry settings that should be changed, looked at? Is it better to use external graphic card instead of onboard video?

Example expected answer: You should read on (and disable) Nagle Algorithm if you use TCP as it can delay packet sending.

(This could maybe be turned in community wiki)

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Consider using Multimedia Class Scheduler Service

From the doc

The Multimedia Class Scheduler service (MMCSS) enables multimedia applications to ensure that their time-sensitive processing receives prioritized access to CPU resources. This service enables multimedia applications to utilize as much of the CPU as possible without denying CPU resources to lower-priority applications

Another option availale to you is to adjust your thread priorities but you need to be very careful not to get to aggressive with this.

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Hardware-wise, will this be running on server-class equipment? If so, the usual steps apply. Disable hyperthreading, turbo boost, and CPU C-states. Implement some level of CPU-affinity on your critical processes.