R4 - Failure to Auto Change between Discrete and Integrated Graphics

Hi Guys,

last night I had trouble getting almost any game to start and those that did played like a dog. I would click on the game (ie Shogun II) and it would appear that the game was loading (the initial black screen) and then crash back to the desktop. This happened several times on several different games until I played Battlefield 3 which played like a dog. After I exited the game I noticed the Intel Graphics icon in the notification tray so I Fn-F7 and did a restart with just the discrete graphics after that everything worked normally except of course I had disabled the integrated graphics.

Now I am one of those unlucky people who has a problem with after a restart having no sound devices detected so I am often doing a restart pressing Fn-F7. This problem seems to be based on drivers and possibly the sequence in which drivers are installed so before I start removing and reinstalling the Intel Graphics Drivers and the NVidia drivers I thought I would ask if anyone else has had this problem and secondly what actually controls the switching between the two graphics cards?

 

Use 'windows updates' drivers. All you need to do is currently uninstall the intel and nvidia drivers. Run windows update and it will install its own intel drivers and then put the latest nvidia ones. (The nvidia ones won't install without the integrated anyways).

You did try the right click and 'run with nvidia high performance graphics' ?

From what I understand, the two graphics cards run at the same time for optimus and the nvidia card is connected to the integrated which is then connected to the monitor. It goes through that chain to display an image, but optimus should be able to distinguish which one is needed. Basically any image from the nvidia card is pushed through the intel card.

If you do fn+F7 i think it just runs on the discrete and the integrated is disabled I assume it just passes through the integrated graphics.

Suprised your having issues with nvidia they have been good for me. I know that if its freshly installed/updated it takes a while for it to repopulate which apps are on your computer and to use which graphics card for each app, but its pretty spot on usually.

BTW: go to nvidia control panel and display I think (next to where you find file, edit, etc.) and 'display gpu status in the taskbar' so you know when the discrete gpu is being used and which apps are usuing it.

 

While I had the problem the NVidia Control Panel did not work at all. It was as if I did not have the NVidia card or could not access it.

"You did try the right click and 'run with nvidia high performance graphics' ?"
I have been using this computer for several months now and I have never had an issue like this. It may be something to do with the newer NVidia drivers though because I only installed them on the weekend.

 

Problem solved. I removed the latest NVidia drivers 320.18 and reinstalled 314.22 and everything works normally.

 

The AMD catalyst does the same when drivers are corrupted or incorrectly updated.

Glad you were able to get it back to normal !