The following example demonstrates changing the CPU priority given an application. Care should be taken when changing the applications priority, as values that are too high may cause the system to become unresponsive. For more information, please see the Win32 help file for the SetThreadPriority() function.

Example:
procedure TForm .Button Click(Sender: TObject);
var
  ProcessID : DWORD;
  ProcessHandle : THandle;
  ThreadHandle : THandle;
begin
  ProcessID := GetCurrentProcessID;
  ProcessHandle := OpenProcess(PROCESS_SET_INFORMATION,
                               false,
                               ProcessID);
  SetPriorityClass(ProcessHandle, REALTIME_PRIORITY_CLASS);
  ThreadHandle := GetCurrentThread;
  SetThreadPriority(ThreadHandle, THREAD_PRIORITY_TIME_CRITICAL);
end;