The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    I don't understand how graphics cards work.

    Discussion in 'Gaming (Software and Graphics Cards)' started by Concussed, Dec 24, 2011.

  1. Concussed

    Concussed Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    3
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Right, well this has been on for a while now so I wanted it taken care of.
    The problem is my HP Pavillion dv6-6155se is fit with AMD Radeon HD 6490M (1GB GDDR5 dedicated) graphics, yet the computer itself only recognises Intel HD graphics. I'll provide screenshots of different programs used to find out the cards, but there it is, why is this and how can I solve it if it's a problem?

    Here are screen shots of my specs (These are links to open the images in a tab, I've added the images themselves below):
    Computer Properties
    DXDiag System specs
    DXDiag Display specs
    HP Support Assistant specs


    Computer Properties:
    [​IMG]

    DXDiag System Specs:
    [​IMG]

    DXDiag Display Specs:
    [​IMG]

    HP Support Assistant:
    [​IMG]

    Cheers,
     
    Concussed, Dec 24, 2011
    #1
  2. Baka

    Baka (・ω・)

    Reputations:
    2,228
    Messages:
    2,111
    Likes Received:
    20
    Trophy Points:
    56
    Baka thinks the laptop has optimus or whatever the switchable graphics thing is ._.
     
    Baka, Dec 24, 2011
    #2
  3. PatchySan

    PatchySan Om Noms Kit Kat

    Reputations:
    3,971
    Messages:
    2,248
    Likes Received:
    221
    Trophy Points:
    81
    Some notebooks with switchable graphics require you to toggle via the BIOS. Check the BIOS to see if there is an option to choose between the AMD Radeon or the Intel GPU.
     
    PatchySan, Dec 24, 2011
    #3
  4. DJ_Pawel

    DJ_Pawel Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    30
    Messages:
    147
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    31
    DJ_Pawel, Dec 24, 2011
    #4
  5. Steven

    Steven God Amongst Mere Mortals

    Reputations:
    705
    Messages:
    986
    Likes Received:
    4
    Trophy Points:
    31
    I thought this was going to be a thread on how graphics cards really worked...
     
    Steven, Dec 24, 2011
    #5
  6. Mechanized Menace

    Mechanized Menace Lost in the MYST

    Reputations:
    1,370
    Messages:
    3,110
    Likes Received:
    63
    Trophy Points:
    116
    Lol me too Garfield... Me too....
     
    Mechanized Menace, Dec 25, 2011
    #6
  7. Concussed

    Concussed Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    3
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Thanks for the link, I've went through the steps and made it so my computer runs high res at all times. But its still not recognising the ATI chipset.

    This is specifically Amnesia, it falls on other games to but Amnesia is the example i'm going with now.

    What do?
     
    Concussed, Dec 25, 2011
    #7
  8. ganzonomy

    ganzonomy Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    1,169
    Messages:
    919
    Likes Received:
    50
    Trophy Points:
    41
    Could this be one of those cards that has its own memory, but shares the bandwidth with the CPU? (Kinda like hypermemory / turbocache from a few years back?) My mom's M5030 / Radeon 4250m is the same way. Claims to have 256MB ram, but has no actual cores / shaders and mooches more memory off of the mainboard.

    Jason
     
    ganzonomy, Dec 25, 2011
    #8
  9. HTWingNut

    HTWingNut Potato

    Reputations:
    21,580
    Messages:
    35,370
    Likes Received:
    9,878
    Trophy Points:
    931
    Run GPU-Z. It should tell you all you need to know about your video card(s).

    GPU-Z Video card GPU Information Utility

    It has its own RAM. Another thing to do is update the BIOS. Visit HP's website and update the BIOS to the latest. With the DV6t's they added an option to manually set the discrete video card I believe.

    Best to post in the HP part of the forum for best response because chances are tons of people have same system you do: http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-pavilion-notebooks/
     
    HTWingNut, Dec 25, 2011
    #9
  10. KoldWar

    KoldWar Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    2
    Messages:
    157
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    I bought an HP Envy for my brother, and to use the Radeon graphics card you had to go into CCC(Catalyst Control Center) and change the settings for the switchable graphics.
     
    KoldWar, Dec 25, 2011
    #10
  11. Steven

    Steven God Amongst Mere Mortals

    Reputations:
    705
    Messages:
    986
    Likes Received:
    4
    Trophy Points:
    31
    I was quite disappointed with the outcome when clicking upon this thread :p
     
    Steven, Dec 25, 2011
    #11
  12. hockeymass

    hockeymass that one guy

    Reputations:
    1,450
    Messages:
    3,669
    Likes Received:
    85
    Trophy Points:
    116
    Do you have it set to fixed mode switching or dynamic switching? Dynamic switching does not trigger the ATI card on games like Amnesia or Minecraft that use OpenGL.
     
    hockeymass, Dec 26, 2011
    #12