My Laptop has two GPUs, an on-board HD3000 and an NVIDIA card. On Windows 7 they behaved all right. On the desktop the on-board HD3000 was usually used, but as soon as I launched a game the NVIDIA card took up the job. I know this because there is a little LED which changes its color depending on the graphic card currently used.
Now after updating to Windows 10 the GPU switch is going crazy. Sometimes they are switched several times within a minute, but most often the NVIDIA card is used, even when I am just browsing plain websites (e.g. currently while writing this). When I have the plain desktop on the screen and do nothing, the HD3000 is used after some seconds, but as soon as I move the mouse it switches again. This gets really annoying when watching youtube videos or streams via chrome. There can be minutes when the HD3000 is used constantly. But every now and then (sometimes several times in a minute) it changes to the NVIDIA card and back again after some seconds. The video stops for a second when it switches to the HD3000. Sound remains consistent.
Summing up I didn't recognize any real and understandable pattern behind this. I would expect Windows 10 to start using the NVIDIA card when the HD3000 approaches its performance limits, but I would have guessed that moving the mouse should not require that much power, not even on Windows 10.
Is there any way to get it working as before on Windows 7? If not, can I somehow disable or forbid Windows 10 to use the NVIDIA card for desktop applications? What would you do?
Here some more information about my system:
- Laptop Asus N53SV-SX711V
- Windows 10 Pro x64, Version 1511 Build 10586.420
- CPU: Intel Core i5-2410M @ 2.30GHz, integrated GPU: HD 3000
- GPU: GeForce GT 540M, Driver 368.39
- RAM: 8GB
Edit
I found out here, that the HD3000 is officially not supported by Intel. But "not supported" obviously doesn't mean it cannot be used, since in fact it's used sometimes. Also I can open the Intel Control Panel and change settings (driver version 9.17.10.4229).
Still: What can I do/try? What would you do except disabling the HD3000 completely?
Best Answer
Since the Windows 10 Spring Update 1803, Windows now directly exposes this type of functionality for all graphics cards, regardless of make or model, as long as they implement WDDM 2.4. This means it will work for Intel, AMD or Nvidia graphics all the same!
If you look for a settings panel called "Graphics Settings", you can add applications and pick which GPU they should use. It's a little involved because you need to manually add any software and games you want to run on the dedicated graphics card, but I find it an acceptable trade of.
To find these graphics settings, search for them in the start menu, or right click your desktop, and click "Display settings". Scroll down the window, and you'll find a link to open the graphics settings panel:
From there, you can easily add and configure what software should run on which card:
Sadly, I haven't found a way to change the default card for all applications.
It seems to incur a significantly higher bandwidth cost than traditional Optimus, though I haven't been able to measure this since I can no longer get traditional Optimus to run on my laptop.