N550JK-DS17T: NVidia control panel settings don't take effect

Win 8.1 64 bit. Latest intel chipset and display drivers from Asus, latest GeForce drivers from NVidia.

I found that I am unable to use the NVidia Control panel to override certain settings - most importantly VSYNC.

It seems that the setting in the Intel HD Graphics Control panel override them. For example, the only way I can force VSYNC in a game is to use the setting in the Intel control panel. NVidia settings don't work. This is with games set to use the NVidia card! This is a problem because the Intel vsync setting is global, and I need to restore per-application override settings. It behaves this way no matter what I do.

To be clear, the games use the correct graphics processor (NVidia) no problem, it's just the settings that won't work. I've tried clean install of both drivers, no change.

A few images to show the settings:

Profile for a game, showing it does use the NVidia card (and when I play, the high framerate confirms that):


The setting that determines the VSYNC, even though it shouldn't. This one is global. Even using "Application Settings" here won't allow the NVidia settings to take over. No matter what I set on this page, NVidia settings are not applied.