I have noticed that some of my programs when I run them take a massive amount of cpu usage and make my computer run very hot. This question seems like a stretch to me but is there any way to limit the amount of processing power a certain program uses? I don't really care if the program takes a longer amount of time to complete what it needs to do, i just don't want my computer overheating. Any suggestions would be great or if it is just not possible then that is fine too.
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Limiting CPU usage to programs
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You can adjust the priority of a particular process easily enough. It would help to know what application you have in mind, though.
I wish there was a way to throttle back HandBrake to about half the frame process rate, just to keep my temps down. I usually stack up a huge queue and let it run through the night with the fans on maximum via SMCFancontrol. I wouldn't mind it taking longer if it kept my CPU below 180F...
Changing the priority won't have any effect there. If something is pushing your system to 100%, it will run at 100%.
Normally you'd do this from the command line, but I found a graphical frontend for the nice command. Basically, processes with lower nice values are given first priority, so if you renice a process to 20, other applications will be given first shot at the processor cycles and that process will have to make do with whatever is left over. That means the rest of your system will run faster, but it won't change the overall activity.