Newer GPUs not recognized by older games

My newish Gigabyte P34v4 has a 3 GB GTX 970M GPU. When I installed GTA IV a few months ago I had to go through some rigmarole to get the GPU to work properly, and I remember reading that it had something to do with older games not being able to recognize the GPU or its available video memory. I had to put a tag on the shortcut command line: "-availablevidmem 11.0" and this allows me to run the game. Got this tip online.

I'm noticing this is happening with other older games too. I just downloaded a flight simulator game that is only allowing me to select the Intel integrated graphics card in the game's graphic menu. Is there a "universal" or "semi-universal" fix for this? What are the ways to force a program to recognize and use the dedicated card? The availablevidmem trick looks like it doesn't work with all programs. Or should it?

 

You should selec the intel GPU since this is what the game runs through, performance should still be accelerated though through the dGPU.

 

What flight simulator?

And did you go into Nvidia Control Panel, Manage 3D Settings, Program Settings and add the program there and even if it says "Auto" or "Default" set it to dedicated GPU. When you start the game it should use your 970m then.

 

Yes that worked...to select the GPU through the Manage 3D Settings control. Unfortunately, that doesn't work with all programs though. Like I mentioned I had to do some extra steps for GTA IV as well as a Total War game.

The sim is Strike Fighters 2 by Thirdwire.