P: Add priority setting to the application

Also, disk i/o is a significant factor. At least in Windows heavy disk i/o can slow down your computer a lot, even if the CPU load remains low. When I download raw files from my Nikon camera, I get NEF files, which I then convert using Adobe Dng Converter. You can also configure settings in Dng Converter, for example affecting compatibility with old versions of Camera Raw. This particular registry edit, setting the default priority of a specific program, is so simple and straightforward that there is no real danger of messing up anything.

I run a NVIDIA utilty where I can watch CPU and GPU traffic continiously. You are correct in the CPU sees very little activity most of the time. RAM and GPU are the two I really want to monitor. I just need to change parameters. My computer is a little older 2018 era with an RTX-2070 video card. Yes, a little anemic, not too bad though. Since I build my own I can upgrd at anytime. Want to wait until DDR6 is released though. Although I have in the past edited the registry, however, try to keep it simple first. I do not have a batch of files to convert to DNG since this is the format I save when I download my images.

Well, no. Normally, when you work on your computer, most of the time the CPU is idle, because it only needs to work at full power briefly  when you do something in your applications. The reason being that your programs respond to events, such as mouse clicks and keyboard inputs. But when you have a process that continuously takes all the CPU power that it can get, and also has maximal disk i/o, like the DNG converter, it will slow down everything else. But when you set that process to low prority, it will pause whenever your other processes need resources. Your other (interactive)  processes will then be resposive. That is the reason why DNG converter makes your high end Windows PC unresponsive and slow, and also the reason why setting the DNG converter to low priority will not do that. It does not depend on your hardware or which version of the Windowns OS you are using. Why not try this on your own Windows PC? I guarantee you will see the effect. Setting the process priority in Windows registry is perfectly legit, it is not "risky" in any way. It simply tells the Windows OS that this process must pause whenever some other process needs resources.

Jtoksa;

Point being try to incl as much information as posssible to mitigate seecond guesssing the situation. I had to make an assumption you were running Windows when you stated Task Manager. There are several factors which affects the load on the system when running Adobe apps. I would have used Task Scheduler in Win to run when computer is not in use. Editing the registry can be a little risky. 

I was able to permanently change the priority of the "Adobe DNG Converter.exe"  process to "low" by creating a registry key "Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\Adobe DNG Converter.exe\PerfOptions" and setting it to DWORD (32 bit) value of hex "1" which means low priority. Now, whenever I start the program, its priority is low by default.

It does not make any difference which Windows OS I am running, because, when a pocess takes up as much CPU time as it can, and does a lot of disk i/o, it will slow down other processes. I have a modern desktop PC with powerful hardware, and Windows 11 operating system. The issue does not have anything to do with how much computing power there is, because it takes all it can get. But when I manually reduce the priority of the process, it works in the background without slowing down everything else.

May want to include information IRT the computer type, Win ver . . . to many variables on why this slows down you system. I am not aware of any apps which have built in throtling. May be a delay processing when you are not using the computer?