Laptops with a lower power card + an real GPU

OpenGL OpenGL: Advanced Coding
1

Has anyone found a good way to deal with the new laptops that have a low power onboard graphics chip that is used for basic computing, and then a real (Nvidia etc.) GPU used for 3D apps? When my application starts up all the OpenGL calls return extensions/functionality from the onboard chip instead of real GPU, causing all kinds of issues.

Thoughts?

2

For NVidia, you may use the NVAPI library in order to set “NVIDIA high performance processor” as default GPU for your application.
http://developer.nvidia.com/nvapi

For AMD/ATI, I don’t know… Maybe the “ATI Display Library SDK” will provide the needed functionality some day:
http://developer.amd.com/sdks/ADLSDK/Pages/default.aspx

3

Hey can you elaborate on the NVAPI solution? I use NVAPI in my app already but I just downloaded the latest NVAPI documentation and I can’t find the setting you are referring to.
Thanks

4

Hi,
I am assuming, you refer to NVidia Optimus.
Looking through NvApiDriverSettings.h, you’ll find

#define SHIM_MCCOMPAT_STRING                       L"Optimus flags for enabled applications"
#define SHIM_RENDERING_MODE_STRING                 L"Enable application for Optimus"
#define SHIM_RENDERING_OPTIONS_STRING              L"Shim Rendering Mode Options per application for Optimus"



enum ESetting {

...

  SHIM_MAXRES_ID                                = 0x10F9DC82,
    SHIM_MCCOMPAT_ID                              = 0x10F9DC80,
    SHIM_RENDERING_MODE_ID                        = 0x10F9DC81,
    SHIM_RENDERING_OPTIONS_ID                     = 0x10F9DC84,

...

}

Somwhere below there’s


enum EValues_SHIM_RENDERING_MODE {
    SHIM_RENDERING_MODE_INTEGRATED                       = 0x00000000,
    SHIM_RENDERING_MODE_ENABLE                           = 0x00000001,
    SHIM_RENDERING_MODE_USER_EDITABLE                    = 0x00000002,
    SHIM_RENDERING_MODE_MASK                             = 0x00000003,
    SHIM_RENDERING_MODE_VIDEO_MASK                       = 0x00000004,
    SHIM_RENDERING_MODE_VARYING_BIT                      = 0x00000008,
    SHIM_RENDERING_MODE_AUTO_SELECT                      = 0x00000010,
    SHIM_RENDERING_MODE_OVERRIDE_BIT                     = 0x80000000,
    SHIM_RENDERING_MODE_NUM_VALUES = 8,
    SHIM_RENDERING_MODE_DEFAULT = SHIM_RENDERING_MODE_AUTO_SELECT
};

I believe, if you set set SHIM_RENDERING_MODE_ID to SHIM_RENDERING_MODE_ENABLE and tie a profile with this setting to your application, it could work the way you want.
I have not tried this yet, though.

5

I don’t think it’s Nvidia optimus. The laptop literally has a 2nd (usually Intel) graphics card whos driver is responding to the initial gl calls.

Edit: Ok after reading deeper into optimus I think is what you refer to. Thanks for your help