Do I have switchable? Or have I been misunderstanding this whole time?

OK, well I just downloaded the driver that is in Microsoft update and now I have these options as you can see in the pictures.

I just changed it to "Select the graphics processor based on power source"

And then I chose the "High performance GPU"

Does this mean that no matter what I'm using the 6770?

 

People have gotten that screen before, but those options go away when you reboot the machine. If you can reboot it and they stay, then you must have gotten a brand new driver with the promised fix...

 

You have a 6100 series? HOLY sh*t it might have been fixed!

 

Haha, I wish, Althernai is right, it went away when I rebooted. Which is really wierd, because I didn't just now install that driver.... I have restarted my comp multiple times since I installed the driver, so why did those options just show up now?

 

Damn. So if you get that screen, just hibernate your computer until a real fix is released LOL.

 

Even though the option has popped up for some, it is not functional, as the video bios is not set to handle it. The new bios release will replace the video bios, which will give you the option to have it set to either manual or dynamic. It will be interesting to see how seamless it is to switch on the fly. Hopefully, it won't require a reboot.

 

If the fix is anything like the Envy 17 series...switching is easy! Example, the other night, I was working off battery...so the 6850M was disabled and the Intel was running. I could tell, by choosing graphics attributes and the Intel was listed as active. Put the machine on my desk and plugged it in. Immediate pop up asking if I wanted to enable the High Power GPU. Said yes...momentary blink for a second and back on AMD GPU. I also have the choice of running AMD all the time or Intel. My choice! On battery, with brightness on 60%, no usb power down and backlit keyboard lit...I get 3 hours and 25 minutes of battery using Intel on six cell battery. If I enable AMD on battery with same settings...2 hours 25 minutes. Even with the muxer enabled...switching between GPU's is effortless and never requires a reboot...

 

Bobmitch, what you're describing is the traditional manual switching as I understand it, which was the same way for the 6000 series DV6/DV7 releases. However, what I'm referring to is the ability to go from dynamic to manual and back again. To my knowledge, I don't believe the Envy lineup ever went with the dynamic switching, so it wasn't a concern. With two separate independent sets of instructions for the video bios though, I don't know if things will be as seamless.

In most instances, I would venture that the dynamic setup is the way to go. However, if you want to overclock or run OpenGL, you may tend toward the manual method most of the time. Either way, I won't be heartbroken knowing I have the functionality, even if it does require a restart.

 

From my experience I think muxless configurations add overhead. I think you lose some performance with it...

 

you do, it uses 8x pci-e lane instead of 16x as well as a couple millisecs of lag to transfer between iGPU and dGPU, but the performance loss is less than 5% (around 1-2%, so instead of 50fps you'll get 49fps) and won't be noticeable unless you rigorously compare the actual FPS.

 

it doesn't switch in couple of ms, but feels around 150 ms, which is still significantly faster than the muxed configuration.

However, even muxless switches pretty fast, you tend to feel it more since it switches every time you open and close a app that requires it.

 

I don't think he's talking about switching. He's talking about lag created because the video has to be routed through the IGP from the DGPU.

A couple of milliseconds is a lot, to be honest...it would add to the input lag

 

it depends how you look at it. a typical screen has a response time of 8ms, lets say that the input lag is 2ms, then it would effectively change the response time from 8ms to 10ms.

the 2ms lag would effectively be a frameshift of 1 frame at 500fps (aka, first frame is now 2nd frame, 2nd is 3rd, etc) it is not perceptible to human eyes.

i think you are thinking that the lag applies to every frame, in that case it would be more noticeable. but this is more like a desync than a lag, like watching a movie with the audio/video out of sync, with a difference of 2ms. at maybe 300ms+ it would be noticeable, but definitely not at <10ms.

 

There's no way for it to be the same as the Envy, because a multiplexer is a hardware component that the DV6 just doesn't have.

 

Wouldn't a desync mean your mouse movements would be delayed by 2 ms just like normal input lag? Don't think I get it