Alternate way of enabling Automatic graphics switching

Hey guys,

I am running Mountain Lion 10.8.2 and automatic graphics swithcing is not fully working on my 2010 macbook pro 17 inch. Is there an alternate way of enabling this or testing something out?

I have reset SMC, PRAM and run a hardware test but still the problem persists and no hardware related problems are present.

Hope someone can shed some light on this matter?

Thanks in advance

 

have you tried using GFXCardStatus?

 

Thank you very much for your reply and to answer your question yes I have tried GFXcardstatus. But i was wondering if there is any workaround solution to make the automatic graphics switching to work properly like for instance a terminal command.

 

Don't think so.

 

what do you mean by "not working properly" ??

is it never switching.. or you don't like when it switches... sometimes switching on when you think it shouldn't, or not switching on when you think it should? I think the method they use to switch is not that great, so I always disable auto switching... it never seems to be good enough. I manually switch mine since I know better when its needed than the computer can guess.

 

Thanks for the replies guys. Essentially the problem is that it doesn't switch to dedicated graphics at all and it always uses the integrated intel graphics. For instance, when running graphics intensive programs like Photoshop or even whilst gaming it still runs on intel graphics and does not switch to dedicated and its quite annoying.

Guess the only option is to uncheck the graphics switching option. But can you please let me know if this will cause any significant problems to the machine or the dedicated graphics card even?

 

you can use GFXCardStatus to select which GPU you want to use at any time... Why not just control it yourself? Disabling it in System Preferences is the same as setting it to discrete only in GFXCardStatus. If you force it either way in GFXCardStatus then it won't change unless you manually change it.

I did have my machine mess up once and refuse to ever get off the Intel.. even GFXCardStatus couldn't change it... but a SMC reset fixed it.

 

Cheers thanks for that. Out of curiosity, will it pose a problem on the machine or the dedicated graphics if i were to run on dedicated graphics all the time?

 

You'll just kill your battery life and produce more heat, but you can do it if you'd like. I run my intel about 90% of the time to keep the machine cooler since it can more than handle the majority of things I do. Even some low end games and such I stick with the intel, but you really can just never use the Intel if you so choose.

 

Thanks for your reply. Its just the on ML there is this wierd cursor issue (which ive posted about before) where, when it goes over text on any pdf on safari it sort of lags and this is also evident when going over a document. its noticable when there is a change in shape of the cursor from the usual pointer to the "i". guess i have to wait out it for the next update to hopefully sort this prolbem out