Onboard vs Dedicated GFX problems

Hi

I'm having problems with my new Dell XPS L1702x. It's an i7 with a GT555M gfx card. When I got the laptop I did a fresh installation of W7x64 and then reinstalled the drivers from the Dell website. Now I'm not sure if I did somethign wrong there because I'm having really big problems getting the GT555M to do what I want.

It works OK with proper 3D games through Steam but pretty much everything else seems to ignore it and even if I tell the laptop to use the GT555M via the nVidia control panel it ignores it. The main problem I'm having is with a pinball simulator - Visual Pinball but it also seems to be ignore by Windows in general and by Firefox.

I just can't seem to make the laptop screen recognise the GT555M. The only way I can get it to run for everything is if I disable the Intel gfx via the Device Manager but then the laptop will only output to an external monitor. However this makes everything run super smoothly, Windows, Firefox and Visual Pinball.

I've got a modern desktop with GTX570 and have no problems there so I'm thinking I've got some driver or settings problem. I'd appreciate any advice because at the moment my new laptop is causing me grief.

 

What order did you install your drivers in? I believe you are suppose to do the IGP before the 555m.

Here is the thread for the 702x clean install. I read through it, and it'll definitely solve your problem (be it a driver issue or such):

http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell-xps-studio-xps/576836-dell-xps-17-l702x-clean-install.html

 

Thanks. Thing is, I think I used that thread to help me clean install the first time. Ah, well, I guess something went wrong so no harm doing it again.

 

BUMP

Hi. I just wanted to say that I've reinstalled Windows and the drivers accroding to the guide but I still have the same problem.

I've found it's a common problem with Optimus laptops which I think this is. I just can't get it to use the GT555 for my web browser and desktop. Also a few other programs that no matter what I tell the nVidia control panel, will not run using the GT555.

ARe there any new solutions to my problems?

 

It won't use the GT555 for those things because it doesn't need to. There would be no benefit.

 

Tell that to my youtube who's videos stutter regularly and scrolling through regular webpages has a frame rate of about 1fps. OK, Windows is generally fine but it does slow up occasionally which never happens on my desktop.

Mainly though, I have problems with Visual Pinball/PinMAME or Future Pinball and that is actually quite a graphically intensive program but I CANNOT get my GT555 to recognise it despite adding the vpinball.exe to the nVidia panel's 3D settings. I've read that it's only really games that use DirectX that the Optimus decides being worthy of switching for.

Besides, surely I should be able to override Optimus? I appreciate massively the general theory of using IGP for undemanding tasks and especially when using the laptop on battery but since when did my computer know best how I should use my expensive GFX card?

Simply put, I can SEE the difference between how my PC works with the GT555 and how it works with the Intel GFX because when I connect to an external monitor, everything runs via the nVidia card and everything is super smooth, silky and lovely. I want that on my laptop screen!

 

My optimus has always worked fine.. try getting drivers directly from nvidia/intel if you didn't the first time.

 

If just browsing the internet is that crappy on the IGP, then there's something else going on. As for the pinball thing, do you have the hardware acceleration option selected in the game itself?

 

Maybe I'm exaggerating but it's definately a lot less fluid. I've actually managed to force the card to see Firefox now so I'm happy with that. Windows I can live without but Visual Pinball is one of the main reasons I bought this lappy so I could play on the go.

In the graphics options I select Hardware Device Rendering however, when it launches the table it immediately switches to Windows 7 Basic and the tables are impaired but they do run. If I deselect it then the table crashes as soon as it loads.

Using my recently aquired Optimus Test Viewer I can see that the Nvidia doesn't get used at any point during the program, neither the editor or when I launch the table. I run the program on my desktop and it plays perfectly.