C++ Threading maximal CPU for a thread

Question

I am using std::threads and in my setup my other threads (variable amount, currently set to 10) are using so much capacity that my used cpu in task manager goes up to 100% for the application. That makes my main thread laggy, which should be real time (I assume that this is the reason for the lag).

I debugged with Intel Amplifier, but there was no other clue why the main thread should lag. My secondary threads where all really busy.

Is it possible to tell a thread how much CPU it can use maximal? How can I make sure that my other threads don't affect the performance of my main thread?

Thread initialisation:

for (int i = 0; i < numberOfThreads; i++)
{
   std::thread* thread = new std::thread(&MyClass::mWorker, this);
   mThreads.push_back(thread);
}

My System: i5-4590 3.3GHz, 8 GB RAM, Windows 8 64 bit, Ogre3D Graphic Engine

Answer 1

I don't think there are any C++11 means for doing that, but you can use platform thread scheduling features with the native_handle that you can obtain from an std::thread and then either set the priority of the threads (e.g. - prioritize the main thread) or set thread affinity so that the main thread is bound to an exclusive core that is not used by any of the worker threads.