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Disabling discrete graphic for battery life?

A

ADAADW

macrumors member
Original poster
Hey

I was wondering if there is any way (or if there is a way though software) to only use the integrated intel graphics on the new 2010 i5 15in macbook pro's? For myself i don't do anything overly heavy, some photoshop and logic express 9 hear and there but would like the 15in screen size. The critical thing i need to have a good battery life and know the best way to get this would be to use integrated graphics. So the question is can i? would a software update allow this? or am i just out of luck?

Thanks for the help!
 
ADAADW said:
Hey

I was wondering if there is any way (or if there is a way though software) to only use the integrated intel graphics on the new 2010 i5 15in macbook pro's? For myself i don't do anything overly heavy, some photoshop and logic express 9 hear and there but would like the 15in screen size. The critical thing i need to have a good battery life and know the best way to get this would be to use integrated graphics. So the question is can i? would a software update allow this? or am i just out of luck?

Thanks for the help!
Click to expand...

At this point, no. But I would suspect that there will be a 3rd party utility to do it sooner or later.
 
iLog.Genius said:
As much as many would like that, I highly doubt that will be possible.
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I'm using to programming on Windows, so things may be very different in the Mac environment. But since OSX uses a signal call of some sort to enable the 330m, wouldn't it be feasible to code something to intercept this call and discard it?
 
mikeo007 said:
I'm using to programming on Windows, so things may be very different in the Mac environment. But since OSX uses a signal call of some sort to enable the 330m, wouldn't it be feasible to code something to intercept this call and discard it?
Click to expand...

I don't think coding or programming to do so is the problem. With all things Apple, the main obstacle in truly customizing it is Apple grip (EFI?) on it's software - there's things that Apple blocks but you just can't break those. If it were possible, I would be glad. Perhaps something can be released with the MacBook Pro's with the 9400M and 9600M GT GPU's.
 
Hey thanks for the responses everyone, good to know. Im just wondering why wouldn't Apple even give you the option of choosing 1. integrated 2. discrete or 3. hand off? When i first started looking into it i thought it was strange because im sure there are others like me who would rather have the battery power over the performance (in some scenarios). Think that apple will include this in an update to the macbook pro firmware?
 
Hoping for this, too. Would be willing to pay. Such an obvious, common sense thing - to be able to only run on Intel HD when unplugged. Sigh.
 
The new MBPs switch their graphics automatically, so if all you're doing is email and web browsing, it will disable the discrete graphics on its own and only use the integrated. Then when you're doing things that can use the extra GPU power (Photoshop, iPhoto...) it will enable the discrete GPU until you're done: but since you said you do those things rarely, it shouldn't often impact your battery life.
 
splitpea said:
The new MBPs switch their graphics automatically, so if all you're doing is email and web browsing, it will disable the discrete graphics on its own and only use the integrated. Then when you're doing things that can use the extra GPU power (Photoshop, iPhoto...) it will enable the discrete GPU until you're done: but since you said you do those things rarely, it shouldn't often impact your battery life.
Click to expand...

Yes, but because it's kind of new, it's not as reliable. A lot of people can Photoshop fine with integrated graphics.
 
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