Can't get game to use my discrete graphics card

[rgolchin]

Hi. I am using an Alienware mx17 with an Nvidia GTX 580m discrete graphics card. However, when I run the game, it defaults to the internal card (Intel HD graphics family). This is even when the laptop is plugged in. I updated my drivers, which didn't seem to help. Anyone have any suggestions? Can't even play as I'm getting 7 fps.

[Panthur]

Should be an ability to tell it which video card to use in the game's system configuration. But you have to log in to access that i believe as i see no configuration from the launcher itself. If i remember correctly, its on the tab where you can switch from windowed, borderless windowed, and full screen. Gama slider is also there too, as i mash it quite frequently by accident when swaping from full to windowed.

[AmalahRose]

I have the same issue with my AMD cards, and when I go to system configuration only my integrated card is shown as an option.

[Panthur]

Long shot, but maybe you can try disabling the card you dont want it to use forcing it to use the prefered one? Seems off the game cant recognize both cards though. The benchmark showing just the one card as well?

[rgolchin]

Well, it started to finally use my Nvidia card, thank god. I'm not really sure what happened. I updated my card drivers again, and the second one was a charm. Maybe they didn't fully update the first time. Another possibility is that my laptop wasn't fully charged, even though it was plugged in. These alienware computers go strait to the integrated card as soon as they go on battery.

One word of advice to anyone else having this problem. Do NOT disable your integrated card. Everything goes through it before it goes to the discrete card, so your computer won't work properly without it.

[kaiyouske]

You can specify which game can always use the Nvidia card by doing this:

Nvidia Control Panel > Manage 3d settings > Program Settings > Add > Find Game.exe > Select preferred processor.

Just FYI.

[Teizque]

This happened to me with my HP laptop as well. I solved it by going into the BiOS and changing the configurable graphics setting to "fixed"- after I did this my computer always uses one or the other and when I have it [the computer] set to "high performance" the game then will use the discrete card instead of the integrated.

[Panthur]

My Dell laptop only has an intergrated Chipset Intel 4 (R) card for mobile series or something along that lines. It baaaarely squeaks through ff14 assuming i dont have to move in a real hurry. Not great for ae avoiding tho heh