Do you know how to choose the more preferable graphics processor from the two available options for running an application or game? If not, then I suggest laptop owners read this article.

Today, even an average laptop in terms of cost and performance comes with two video cards. The first, which works by default, is built-in, the second is discrete. Additional GPU mainly completed gaming models laptops, but it's not uncommon to find it on a non-gaming setup.

Of the built-in ones, the choice is small and usually it is a chip from Intel, but discrete ones can be from Nvidia or AMD. These are the most widespread and trusted products by users. And manufacturers, first of all, try to complete devices based on our preferences.

Now let's briefly look at the process of interaction between two video cards. When the demands of any running application exceed the capabilities of the integrated card, your system automatically switches to a discrete card. This happens mainly when you start playing games.

As mentioned above, the PC market is dominated by two major GPU manufacturers. It is worth noting that the most widely used Nvidia uses relatively new technology"Optimus" Its functionality lies in the fact that whenever it detects that a program or game needs additional, more powerful resources, a dedicated GPU is automatically used.

Now I'll show you how you can easily force an application to use a high-performance or integrated GPU of the user's choice. This will only be demonstrated today with NVIDIA and Intel.

GRAPHICS PROCESSOR

Open NVIDIA Control Panel. The simplest and quick way- This is to right-click on the corresponding icon located on the Taskbar in the lower right corner. Go to the “Desktop” menu and check the box next to “Add an item to the context menu”.

Now, after these simple steps, you can right-click on the shortcut of any application and, in the menu item that appears, select one of two launch options.

PERMANENT START

And if you decide to always only use a discrete video card, then you need to go to the “Manage 3D settings” section in the Control Panel, select the “Program settings” tab and set in step 1 necessary game or program, and in step 2 select the desired video card, then click on the “Apply” button.

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Most often, laptop owners need to enable a second video card. For desktop PC users, such questions arise quite rarely, since desktops are able to determine which graphics adapter is being used at a given time. To be fair, it is worth noting that users of any computer may encounter situations where it is necessary to manually start a discrete video card.

A powerful video card, unlike a built-in one, is necessary for working in applications that actively use the graphics core (programs for video editing and image processing, 3D packages), as well as for running demanding games.

The advantages of discrete video cards are obvious:

1. A significant increase in computing power, which makes it possible to work in resource-intensive applications and play modern games.
2. Playback of “heavy” content, such as 4K video with high bitrate.
3. Using more than one monitor.
4. Possibility of upgrading to a more powerful model.

Among the disadvantages we can highlight high cost and a significant increase in energy consumption of the system as a whole. For a laptop, this means higher heat.

NVIDIA

The "green" video card can be enabled using software included in the driver package. It's called the NVIDIA Control Panel and is located in "Control Panels" Windows.

Now all applications that work with the video card will use only the discrete adapter.

AMD

The powerful video card from the Reds is also enabled using proprietary AMD Catalyst software Control Center. Here you need to go to the section "Nutrition" and in the block "Switchable Graphics Adapters" select option "High GPU performance".

The result will be the same as in the case of NVIDIA.

The above recommendations will only work if there are no interruptions or malfunctions. Quite often, a discrete video card remains unused due to a disabled option in the motherboard BIOS, or the lack of a driver.

Driver installation

The first step after connecting the video card to motherboard should be the installation of the driver necessary for the adapter to function properly. A universal recipe suitable in most situations is:

In the latest builds of Windows 10 Redstone 4, which is due to be released this spring, new feature- selecting the preferred GPU for working with a particular program. This is mainly needed for laptops that have two graphics - from Intel and from AMD or Nvidia. The first is usually used to save energy when working with light tasks - surfing the Internet, watching movies, working with documents, etc. Well, for games or labor-intensive 3D applications, more powerful discrete graphics are connected (in this case, the integrated GPU from Intel is always responsible for output to the monitor). By default, the video driver of the discrete video card is responsible for switching video cards, and in the Nvidia or AMD control panel you can configure which applications will run with which video card.

Microsoft decided to somewhat simplify and at the same time refine the switching: now it is configured in one place for both Nvidia and AMD video cards, and it is also possible to select the preferred GPU for applications from Windows Store- given that there are still some demanding 3D games out there, this makes sense.

This setting is located in Settings > System > Display > Graphics Settings:

Now choose what type of app you want to set the preferred GPU for - Classic or Universal (from the Windows Store). Next, click on the “Browse” button and specify the path to desired application, if it's classic, or select it from the list if it's universal:

Now click on Program > Options and select which graphics card you want to use. Energy saving means that the program you choose will run with an integrated GPU, high performance - with a discrete one, by default - the video driver will decide.

Updated method

Standard method (does not always work)

Currently, there is such a solution: the laptop has two video accelerators - most often a graphics accelerator Intel core HD Graphics and a discrete chip from Nvidia, the switching mode of which can be selected in the Nvidia control panel.

Standard way:
1. In the Nvidia Control Panel, go to the Software Settings tab:
2. Click the Add button and specify the executable file of the game that we will force to launch with discrete video.
A special case is only for games that use the Java machine (Minecraft and others). What needs to be added to the list is not the game's executable file, but the Java machine itself. To do this, you first need to find where the javaw.exe file is running from. For example, you can launch the task manager, go to the Processes tab, hover over the process of interest to us, right-click and select Properties. The path will be indicated in the window that opens. I have javaw.exe in the folder C:WindowsSysWOW64 (Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit, Java 7SE 32 bit). After the location of the file is known, add it as described above.
3. Select Nvidia High-Performance Processor from the drop-down list.
4. Click the Apply button.

Alternative method (workable)

If the standard method does not help, there is another one - not very obvious, but quite workable.

ATTENTION:
This method tested on Windows 7.
This method does not work on Windows 10.

1. Open Screen Resolution:

2. Click the Find button. Two more monitors will appear with the words No other screen detected:

3. Select a monitor that matches the discrete video accelerator:

4. Select Try to connect to VGA anyway from the Multiple screens drop-down list and click the Apply button:

The result will be the following:

5. Select Extend these screens, click Apply, confirm saving the parameters:

Note

If your video card was not used after turning it on alternative way, do the following.
With the alternative method enabled, do additional regular and enjoy the game.

Result of the alternative method

We observe the result.
Games can now see both video cards.
Window TES settings:Skyrim:

The video card monitoring gadget from 0rbmu2k now normally determines the total amount of memory, the amount of occupied memory and GPU load as a percentage:

Needless to say, games are running faster now?
By the way, I played many games by adding the executable to the Nvidia Panel using the first method. For a comfortable game, I had to set the graphics settings to the very minimum. Now FPS has increased in many games by 20-40%. In some games I didn’t see a significant increase in frames, but the lags and freezes disappeared.

Many laptop users with two Intel video cards and nvidia is often interested in the issue of switching these video cards among themselves. When starting a particular game, it is not clear which of the two video cards is used. In this article, you will learn how you can switch from intel to nvidia on a laptop, and also make sure that you are using a discrete nvidia video card.

What do you need to successfully switch video cards on a laptop?

The only and mandatory condition is the presence of drivers for both video cards. You can check this as follows.

Go to Device Manager by right-clicking on the “ My computer" on the desktop and in the menu that opens, selecting " Control«.

Entering computer management

In the window that opens on the left, select “ device Manager«.

Video cards in device manager

There should be no "standard video adapter drivers". There must be names of both video cards.

Otherwise you will need .

Setting up the nvidia video card driver to add switching capabilities

If everything is in order with the drivers, then by clicking on any free space on the desktop, a menu will open in which you need to select the item “ NVIDIA Control Panel«.

Logging into nvidia control panel

The settings window will open Nvidia video cards. In it you need to click on the menu item “ Desktop" and put the last two checkboxes - " Add Run with GPU item to the context menu" And " Show GPU activity icon in notification area«.

Enabling Items context menu to switch video cards

After this, you can close the settings window.

Now, before launching the game, right-click on its shortcut and select “ Run with GPU» -> « High performance Nvidia processor«.