UPDATE:
I've written an menulet application that will notify you of which GPU is currently in use. I've tested it on my 17" MBP with success, and put in some fallbacks in case people try to run it on unsupported systems (there are ATI/Unknown icons). You can set it to run at startup, and it will also auto update.
![page2-1003-full.jpg]()
...also works with other GPUs (9600GT/9400m switching laptop):
![9600GT.png]()
Download Here
Visit the site
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I thought it might be useful to compile some information about applications that trigger the use of the discrete gpu, either as a means of being able to alert developers/Apple via bug reports, or to know which applications to stay away from when on battery. I ran into one in particular that motivated me here...
Drive Genius 3. Even when the main application is not running, it, by default, turns on DrivePulse which is a menulet to monitor your disks and defragment when possible. Just having the menulet running and -no other applications- the laptop toggles the 330m on. I have notified Prosoft Engineering about this as a bug.
So:
I've written an menulet application that will notify you of which GPU is currently in use. I've tested it on my 17" MBP with success, and put in some fallbacks in case people try to run it on unsupported systems (there are ATI/Unknown icons). You can set it to run at startup, and it will also auto update.
...also works with other GPUs (9600GT/9400m switching laptop):
Download Here
Visit the site
--------
I thought it might be useful to compile some information about applications that trigger the use of the discrete gpu, either as a means of being able to alert developers/Apple via bug reports, or to know which applications to stay away from when on battery. I ran into one in particular that motivated me here...
Drive Genius 3. Even when the main application is not running, it, by default, turns on DrivePulse which is a menulet to monitor your disks and defragment when possible. Just having the menulet running and -no other applications- the laptop toggles the 330m on. I have notified Prosoft Engineering about this as a bug.
So:
- 1Password
- Ableton Live 8
- Acrobat Pro
- Adobe Media Encoder
- Aperture 3
- Camtwist
- Chess
- Choosy
- Cinch - Maybe? Some people say yes, some say no
- CloudApp
- Coverscout 3
- Delicious Library 2
- Djay 3.0
- Drive Genius 3 (disable DrivePulse to stop it from using discrete 24/7)
- Espresso - sometimes...not sure what is triggering it
- Evernote
- Ez7z
- ForeverSave
- ForeverSkin
- Garageband
- Gmail
- Google Chrome - depends on web content
- Hyperspaces
- iChat - video
- iDVD
- iPhone Simulator
- iPhoto
- iSale 5
- iTunes Visualizers - Specifically Lathe and Stix, not the others
- iWeb
- Keynote
- Lightroom 1.4 (but only when you start a slideshow. Doesn't switch back though, until you close the program)
- LittleSnapper (LittleSnapper's menu item does not trigger the GPU)
- NetNewsWire
- MagicPrefs
- Matlab
- Mathematica
- MercuryMover
- Microsoft Office 2011 Office Communicator
- MSN Messenger
- Nambu Twitter Client
- Papers
- Parallels 5
- PathFinder
- Photoshop CS4
- Plex
- Pod to Mac
- Powerpoint
- Quicksilver - Showcase
- Rapidweaver
- RipIt
- Sandvox
- Screenflow
- Screen Sharing - either direction
- Shovebox
- Skim - after a specific search use case
- Skitch
- Skype
- Snapz Pro - Even sitting idle in the background
- Socialite
- The Hit List
- Times
- Toast Titanium 10
- Transmit 4
- Tweetie
- VLC
- VMWare Fusion
- uTorrent
- X11-based Applications
- Xee
- XCode - I am finding that after opening Developer Documentation, XCode uses Nvidia until it is relaunched.
- Yahoo Messenger
- Zooom 2
