Is it possible to force the 650m to be used as the sold GPU in an R2?

I'm not finding any option to switch the grapics processor and when I try to play any game or run Heaven DX11 Benchmark software I get a fluctuating FPS reading and HWinfo never shows any indication that the Nvidia card is in use.

Any pointers would be appreciated. This is my first Optimus equipped laptop so I'm clueless.

 

I just let the Heaven benchmark run all the way through, score was 900 and under GPU Model it says "Unknown GPU 256Mb" so I know for sure it's not seeing the 650m.

 

it says the same for mine too with heaven.

if you go into the control panel, then click on "Nvidia control panel".

on the left side you will see a bunch of actions listed in tree format. click on "Manage 3D settings", then click on the "program settings" tab to the right.

there you can select what GPU you want to be activated for each program.

its pretty sweet.

 

Yeah I found all of that, I set the Nvidia to be used globally, but with the jerkiness in the Benchmark and the fact that it's not showing or giving me any temp readings in HWinfo I am inclined to believe it's not working.

I am on the A10 bios so it should not be the same issue folks were having with the A09. Ideally I'd like to find a way to disable Optimus and the integrated graphics altogether but when I disabled the HD4000 in the device manager I went to a blank screen and had to boot into safe mode to enable it before I had a display again.

When you ran the Heaven Bench what score did you get? That might tell me if it's working right or not.

 

pretty sure you got it working for the benchmark. i doubt the Intel 4000 could even get 100 @ lowest setting TBH.

i dont remember 100% and my M14x is not with me at this time. but i got like 700 scores with tessellation enabled. cant remember the exact settings.

i wouldnt suggest diabling the 650 altogether unless your always pluged in to the wall. your battery life will easily reduce by 1/2 as the 650 truns off (or goes into a really deep sleep) when your just browsing the web, you tube etc. the Intel 4000 is actually pretty powerful compared to on board gfx of a few yrs ago. so unless your gaming/designing/rendering every minute the M14x is on, i really dont see the point of 100% disabling the Intel 4000 gfx.

i dont believe Optimus is controlled much in the Bios. pretty sure it mostly relies on drivers except for a few things like fan & voltage tables. you probably got the blank screen cuz the Intel 4000 was still set to run the desktop UI.

i think you may be just fine here man. as long as the program is set to run on the 650 in the Nvidia control panel you shouldt have any issues.

 

that benchmark sounds about right. are you still having fps drops in-game after changing the nvidia settings?

 

sadly you can't disable the onboard graphics on the m14x as the video output is run through the intel graphics chip even when the Nvidia card is running, so if you take that out of the equation, you don't get any video. Much different setup than the m17x or m18x.

 

I haven't been able to get any games loaded on it yet, too slow of a connection.

I was finally able to get FC3 loaded on my new M18 and all it does is boot to a black screen............I'm about to the point of giving up on gaming from out here, it just doesn't work.

 

Hmm thats strange. Your drivers up to date?

 

310.90

I'll mess with it some more tonight when I get back to the room. Honestly not too worried about it at this point, think taking a break from dealing with software issues for awhile is likely to preserve the operational status of my laptops (I won't beat them with a hammer when they me off) hahahaha

 

I understand completely!! and stay safe over there dude!!

 

You need to set up the nVidia control panel like this. Also make sure that you use the DELL drivers because they are the ones that work better with your system's optimus technology.