How can I switch from Intel onboard graphics to Nvidia dedicated GPU?
When I go to windows screen resolution I see intel. I cant change it.
I go to Device Manager, I see both adapters are there and Nvidia is known.I disabled Intel, I didnt see any option to set one as primary so I disabled intel, black screen!Reboot and re-enable intel.
I right click on the desktop, choose "Nvidia Control Panel" and on 3D options I chose the desired game I want to play, High performance Nvidia, but it didnt switch when I started the game.
Then I made preferred GPU in the global settings High performance Nvidia for everything it still didnt change.I understand to save the battery etc. there is a switch option between these two but I dont see this switch when it is necessary, I cant also switch manually?Is there a manual switch FN key?I looked but couldnt find.
Why I want to do this?
1) Better game peformance.
2) I want to play an old game from 2002(Diablo 2 LOD), when I start the game there are black bars on the sides, so screen becomes just smaller which I dislike! I heard this is intel's specification to center the display.But instead I would like to scale or expand it to fit widescreen(fullscreen). Which should be possible with Nvidia.
My Notebook Specs: Fujitsu Lifebook AH531, Win7 , 64 bit, i5, intel HD graphics onboard, Nvidia GT 525.
I didnt install Nvidia later, it was always installed and ready from the moment I turned on the computer first time.
How I determined that the cards werent switched when I am playing the game: with the windows key I exited from the game, then looked at screen resolutions menu, still saw intel, also the game was still with black bars.I know intel GPU should enough for Diablo 2 but I am interested in this answer for further games, I dont always play Diablo, what if I install an up to date game for example?Then Intel will not be sufficient.I would like to learn the switch option.
Best Answer
Assuming your laptop uses the nVidia Optimus technology, try using the nVidia Optimus toolkit to select to force your game to start with the Nvidia GPU.
You should be able to set rules/profiles for which GPU to use by right clicking the application icon and choosing "run with graphics processor" (or something like that) or using the nVidia control panel.
Some more information about Optimus here: How to disable NVIDIA Optimus on a Dell XPS 15?