Integrated vs Dedicated GPU Query

Hi,

I recently started playing a bit of online poker (Governor of poker 3) via firefox quantum browser and I notice it makes my laptop fan whir up a lot which I thought was strange as I have a fairly high spec machine and the game seems fairly basic.

I have an i7 quad core processor with 16GB RAM.

Having Checked task manager I see it's the GPU which is mostly running at in excess of 80%, and its solely using the integrated intel GPU and not the dedicated nvidia GPU at all.

I wondered if it would be better if the dedicated graphics was being used and if so how to make firefox do that.

Or perhaps it's just normal.

Having googled around it seems that getting to the bottom of what your machine is doing by way of GPU usage and whether it's switching when appropriate is a bit of an enigma, so any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Laptop fans are meant to increase speed when the temperature increases. That's the purpose of them.

There is no point in a Web Browser running on the Nvidia graphics. The iGPU is more than capable.

You can if you wish - Right click Desktop > Nvidia Control Panel > Manage 3D settings > Program settings Tab > Look for Firefox in the drop down box 1. Then 2. Select the preferred graphics processor. IE and Chrome are in there on mine, I don't use Firefox anymore.

The confusion is added to by gamers who have desktops, and don't know about Laptops with dual graphics. I'm actually using one now and there is no enigma involved.

Helmut said:

Laptop fans are meant to increase speed when the temperature increases. That's the purpose of them.

There is no point in a Web Browser running on the Nvidia graphics. The iGPU is more than capable.

You can if you wish - Right click Desktop > Nvidia Control Panel > Manage 3D settings > Program settings Tab > Look for Firefox in the drop down box 1. Then 2. Select the preferred graphics processor. IE and Chrome are in there on mine, I don't use Firefox anymore.

The confusion is added to by gamers who have desktops, and don't know about Laptops with dual graphics. I'm actually using one now and there is no enigma involved.

Ok, thanks for the advice, it's good to know the fan is supposed to whir up and that the integrated GPU should do the job.

I followed the advice and set firefox on nvidia via control panel just to see what happened in task manager processes and if the fan still kicked in. It did and with the same level of noise but the GPU usage was showing much lower, (around 30%) and in processes it showed both nividia and integrated usage simultaneously, which was unexpected but perhaps the integrated may be other processes that are running rather than firefox. Although I can't think what.

Having looked through the nvidia control panel which is set to Global settings 'auto-select: Integrated', and then scroll down the list of programs in the box on the program settings tab, I notice just about everything is set to integrated, even stuff like vlc player. So the question that springs to mind is what is nvidia actually used for, if not even games and videos. What is the purpose of having a high spec dedicated graphics card.

Some video editing software, video games and other stuff that you do while browsing the internet take advantage of dedicated GPU.

RoasterMen said:

Some video editing software, video games and other stuff that you do while browsing the internet take advantage of dedicated GPU.

Ok, thanks for clarifying. Good to know it's there is needed then. Thanks.