Laptop component upgrade (video card upgrading)
- Thread starter va7entin
- Start date
Yes, but not like in the second picture... 😊
Oussebon
Multiverse Poster
The laptop will have "Optimus" (http://www.geforce.co.uk/hardware/technology/optimus/technology) which means it will use the integrated graphics where it can in order to save power. So if you're just on the desktop or whatever, it will show as using the HD graphics.
If you run a game it should use the 950M automatically.
Sometimes Optimus can fail to run the dedicated GPU for certain games or programs. Setting your laptop to the High Performance power plan may help avoid power saving features undermining performance:
https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/778-power-plan-settings-change.html
You set the Nvidia GPU to prefer maximum performance rather than try to use its power saving features, which can occasionally inappropriately reduce performance:
http://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answ...ent-mode-from-adaptive-to-maximum-performance
You can also set the 950M to be your preferred graphics processor in the Nvidia control panel:
https://us.answers.acer.com/app/ans...ow-to-change-nvidia-optimus-graphics-settings
which means it will use the 950M for most things
Obviously all of the above may have an impact on battery runtime.
If you run a game and also run MSI Afterburner you can monitor your 950M's usage, load, temperature, etc with an onscreen display (i.e. text that runs over the game you're playing and displays the information, so you don't need to alt-tab to check the info. Alt tabbing out of a game often reduces the load on the GPU, so if you alt tab out to check GPU load what you see may not be representative of gaming load.
If you're not trying to run games, but rather something else that uses the GPU e.g. video editing then you may need to tell that software in its own settings that it needs to use the dGPU.
If you run a game it should use the 950M automatically.
Sometimes Optimus can fail to run the dedicated GPU for certain games or programs. Setting your laptop to the High Performance power plan may help avoid power saving features undermining performance:
https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/778-power-plan-settings-change.html
You set the Nvidia GPU to prefer maximum performance rather than try to use its power saving features, which can occasionally inappropriately reduce performance:
http://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answ...ent-mode-from-adaptive-to-maximum-performance
You can also set the 950M to be your preferred graphics processor in the Nvidia control panel:
https://us.answers.acer.com/app/ans...ow-to-change-nvidia-optimus-graphics-settings
which means it will use the 950M for most things
Obviously all of the above may have an impact on battery runtime.
If you run a game and also run MSI Afterburner you can monitor your 950M's usage, load, temperature, etc with an onscreen display (i.e. text that runs over the game you're playing and displays the information, so you don't need to alt-tab to check the info. Alt tabbing out of a game often reduces the load on the GPU, so if you alt tab out to check GPU load what you see may not be representative of gaming load.
If you're not trying to run games, but rather something else that uses the GPU e.g. video editing then you may need to tell that software in its own settings that it needs to use the dGPU.
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