I have a Geforce GTS 450 and a motherboard integrated ATI Radeon 3000 IGP into the AMD 760G chipset. The integrated GPU has the default Windows 7 driver provided by Microsoft and is shown in Device Manager as "AMD 760G", while for my Geforce card I have installed the latest driver by nVidia.
My ASRock motherboard does not have an option to switch between the two video cards and the system always boots up with the Geforce card regardless on which graphics card I have connected the VGA cable. (if I connect the cable to the motherboard's video slot it just boots up with a black sceen until I connect the cable back to the discrete GPU).
So my question is: how can I switch to the integrated GPU without removing my Geforce card? Thanks for any replies, I have been trying to tackle this problem for weeks but I haven't found a solution yet.
Edit: Plase note that my question is diferrent from this question: Windows 7: Switching between Nvidia GPU and onboard intel HD graphics in desktop PC. My intergated GPU is AMD Radeon 3000 and not Intel HD Graphics. Also I don't use the Lucid Virtu MVP software. (That software seems to have been discontinued anyway, the link to the app's page is broken).
Best Answer
Switchable graphics is not an option unless the hardware and software are both designed with that function in mind, and in desktops they aren't usually.
Confirmation: https://community.amd.com/thread/211966
As you already learned, removing your discrete GPU allows the integrated graphics to function. Some BIOS allow you to manually switch without removing the discrete GPU, but many don't. However, even those that allow switching in a BIOS setting still require you to restart and get into the BIOS to make this change.
In laptops, switchable graphics are a special coordination of the discrete and integrated graphics systems and the mainboard they are connected to. Each of these components must be designed with this capability in mind, and this development was driven by the need for balancing performance and power.
This need isn't so great in desktop systems, where battery life is not a consideration at all, and where you'd have to get buy-in to the systems and protocols from myriad hardware vendors in order for the function to even begin to be reality.
So, the answer is most likely no. Selected GPU is a function of a hardware switch that in most BIOS is at least semi-automated: Discrete GPU installed? Disable integrated and run discrete.