top meaning of nice field

[Karl oliver]

I have looked at several threads regarding top nice on this site but cant find good description of what I want
example of top on our system

pu states:
LOAD USER NICE SYS IDLE BLOCK SWAIT INTR SSYS
2.48 8.9% 85.1% 5.9% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%

In regrads to the nice using 85 of cpu where is this lumped into. is it user cpu ?
sar gives completely different picture in regards to cpu performance- never mentions niceas we know.
what is acceptable sys usage ,as a general rule

[SANTOSH S. MHASKAR]

Hi,

U can refer following thread

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=556777

[Dennis Handly · Accepted solution]

As SANTOSH's link says, nice is a special state where "nice" users tell the OS that they don't have to have the highest priority, they can wait.

Typically, if bgnice is set, processes put in the background are niced. You can also use the nice(1) command to do that. Or renice(1) after the fact.

As far as a sysadmin is concerned, it is the sum of USER and NICE that is important.