This is an interesting part of the discussion, MMCSS threads have higher priority - BUT - if your system performs like mustard and is never under any real stress then presumably ALL threads will get all the CPU cycles they require - in which case, regardless of the MMCSS thread issue, hyper-threading will still give you theoretically better performance. If your system is being pushed near the limit and you’re over the MMCSS thread limit, then non-MMCSS threads will start to suffer from stalling beyond acceptable latency limits - dropouts, pops and clicks will result. But, there’s nothing that says you can’t perform within the realms of acceptability in terms of dispatching latency - despite half your workload sitting on non-MMCSS threads. In other words, if you have a well-optimized relatively bug-free system. the type of threads that are in use could become a non-issue.