How to make Nvidia the default display adapter/Sony Vaio S 15.5

Hi, I have a Sony Vaio S 15.5 Performance SVS151290X. It comes with an Intel 4000 and Nvidia GeForce 640M LE 2GB graphics adapters. It seems to be using the Intel 4000 adapter all the time. I understand that when using graphics intensive applications like gaming it will switch to the Nvidia card. I want to make the notebook use the Nvidia card all the time, is it possible? I tried disabling the Intel adapter from Device Manager with no luck and there's no option in BIOS to manage the graphics card either. I also tried looking in the Sony Support site for any utility that will manage graphics cards usage, but there's none. Has anyone tried doing this?
Also, Photoshop CS6 or CC are only detecting the Intel adapter and not the Nvidia.

 

If you use stamina mode it's always use intel HD 4000 , but if you want your laptop always use nvidia card you can switch your button to speed mode and open nvidia control panel in global settings, choose the high performance nvidia processor and your laptop always use nvidia card when you use speed mode . Sorry for my bad english but hope it can help you out .

 

There are several applications that force the switchover to happen. Running any of these and minimising them will keep the nVIDIA GPU always on. Example: GPU-Z; there are many more. Just pick one and set it to run on Windows startup (modify the properties to let it run minimised and in system tray).

 

I doubt GPU-z forces apps to USE nVidia, it just forces the clock to stay up for some reason.

Only 3D apps can use nVidia I think. I.e. there is no way to force nVidia to be used for the desktop

 

Thanks,yes I always had the laptop's button set to "Speed". I went to Nvidia's Control Center as you suggested and changed Global Settings to always use the Nvidia Card. It also enables to specify program specific Graphics card usage, so I set Photoshop to always use the Nvidia Card and voila, now Photoshop detects the Nvidia card ans uses it for processing. However I was unable to set browsers (Firefox, etc) to use Nvidia, they are set to always use the Intel graphics by default and the option to switch to Nvidia is grayed out.
Does anyone know if the graphics performance of the Nvidia GeForce 640M LE is much better than that of the HD 4000 Intel adapter to justify the switch? AFAIK the Nvidia 640M LE is a low end notebook card.

 

Make sure the browsers are closed before trying to change the settings.

640M is much better in every respect except power consumption. That said, it is unlikely that there will be a noticeable difference with browsers, et. al. except that your battery will drain faster. 3D games and applications which can use the additional horsepower of the GPU are the ones that will show the most benefit from the switch.

 

Yes, the browsers are closed and yet the option to enable Nvidia in the browsers is grayed out. Also, Photoshop CC detects the Nvidia card as said before and I have CUDA enabled (Edit/Preferences/Performance), however when I do some high processing action like Smart Focus to a big RAW file, Task Manager shows that the CPU usage goes to 100%. Shouldn't CUDA use Nvidia's GPU instead of the Intel CPU?

On a separate note, this is strange. I'm getting a better Graphics Subscore when running the Windows Experience Index with the INtel Graphics (5.6) compared to the Nvidia Graphics (4.8).

 

Most apps will use CUDA in addition to the CPU, not instead of. You should time the various operations with and without the nVIDIA GPU selected. You should see significant improvement, otherwise something isn't working.

Does GPU-Z show a check mark for CUDA for the nVIDIA GPU?

 

You can also use GPU-Z, or other monitoring software, to see the usage of the gpu. But I suspect the CPU is just still the bottleneck.