GPU and power¶
The GPU & Power tab lists the PC's graphics cards with their drivers, sets which card a game renders on, and switches the power plan and power mode. Windows only for now.
Tip for laptops
Set your games to High performance. What Let Windows decide picks can change: after an NVIDIA driver update it switched from the GeForce to the Intel UHD on a test laptop, so games without their own setting rendered on the slow card. And play plugged in: on battery the CPU and GPU run at a fraction of their speed.
Choosing the graphics card¶
Laptops often have two graphics cards: one in the processor (Intel UHD, AMD Radeon Graphics), which saves power, and a faster one (NVIDIA GeForce, AMD Radeon RX). Windows decides per program which one renders. The GPU & Power tab shows:
- Graphics cards in this PC: each card, which one is the dedicated (faster) one, and its driver version and date (NVIDIA's own number, such as 617.42, for NVIDIA cards).
- Graphics card for
: Windows' setting for the selected game's exe. Each choice shows the card Windows picks for it: - Let Windows decide: Windows chooses. This is not always the fast card (see below).
- Power saving: the processor's graphics.
- High performance: the dedicated card.
- Renders on now: the card the running game actually uses (while the game runs).
Set your games to High performance. What Let Windows decide picks can change without warning. On a laptop with an Intel UHD and a GeForce GTX 1650 it meant the GTX 1650, but after an NVIDIA driver update it meant the Intel UHD, so every game without its own setting rendered on the slow card. Choosing High performance for a game fixes its card. Check the choice again after a driver update: the tab shows which card each option means at that moment.
The setting is the same one as in Settings > System > Display > Graphics (Windows graphics
settings... opens that page), so it also applies when the game is started some other way. It is stored
per exe and takes effect when the game starts, so changing it while the game runs offers Restart game.
A game started through a .bat file must have been started once from the app, so the app knows its exe.
Driver updates¶
The first time the tab opens (and with Check for driver updates) the app asks NVIDIA, through the
lookup behind nvidia.com/Download, for the newest Game Ready driver of an NVIDIA card, and shows
Up to date or, in orange, Update available:
Power plan and power mode¶
The Power part of the tab has the same choices as Control Panel > Power Options:
- Power plan: every plan, also the ones Control Panel hides under Show additional plans (Power saver, and Ultimate performance where it exists). Applied at once.
- Power mode: Windows' Best power efficiency / Balanced / Best performance (Settings > System > Power & battery). Windows only offers it with the Balanced plan; with another plan it is greyed out.
- Below: plugged in or on battery, the battery level and battery saver.
Power options... opens the Control Panel page, for editing a plan's own settings.
The game info overlay warns when a game runs on the integrated GPU, on battery or in a power-saving mode.