Can you not turn off integrated graphics and force NVIDIA graphics on the 410p?

I just got this yesterday and am very disappointed in the gaming performance and I think I know why. The Intel graphics are staying active in Civ V and the performance is poor, the PC isn't switching to the 755M. Is there no way to force the 755M graphics to be on so that when gaming it is used? Sorry if this is a dumb question but it is my first laptop with this type of setup.

 

NVIDIA Control Panel --> 3D Settings --> Preferred Graphics Processor --> High Performance NVIDIA

Also you can go into the Program Settings and assign Civ 5 to use the Nvidia GPU.

 

Oh God bless you. This was set to "auto", which you would think meant it would go to the 755M when a game launches. I will try it now and see if the performance is better.

 

Auto-select (aka Optimus) works on a system of "calls", which means if the game requests DirectX or CUDA it will automatically pull out the dGPU. However Civ 5 runs on OpenGL, so i assume Optimus didn't catch the "call" correctly.

 

I see. After doing what you said to do, I'm getting over 100fps in the game, nearly maxed out. Impressive machine this 410p......

 

The only thing is that if you leave the global setting to "high performance NVidia", your battery life will suffer. I would instead recommend to put the laptop back into "auto-select", and then go to Program Settings, and then find Civ 5 (add it manually to the list if its not there, should be located in your SteamApps folder) and assign it to the Nvidia GPU. This way you won't lose out on battery life.

 

Thanks for the advice, but I almost never use a laptop on battery power and when I do, it typically is for very short durations.

 

Still, it helps with system temperatures.