hi res antiglare macbook pro only utilise dGpu?

[sparwn]

hi,

i recently bought the base model of the 15" cMBP with antiglare (all i could afford) >.<

after i install istat menus i realise the display is powered by the dGpu and in system profiler it shows the same thing.

my question now is the iGpu useless??

 

[simsaladimbamba]

The use of the dGPU is application dependent. Use gfxCardStatus (by CodeKrieger) to disable that Dynamic Switching and only use the Integrated (i) or Dedicated (d) GPU.

 

[sparwn]

ok so by downloading the gfxcardstatus software

i have easily confirm without the use of that the iGpu would nvr would have been used.Even by configuring it to start with intergrated it will still shows running on nvidia then switch to intel HD

quite a waste....

does having more ram benefit the iGpu? lets say maybe 8gb or 16gb of it? i'm planning to run VMs

 

[simsaladimbamba]

does having more ram benefit the iGpu? lets say maybe 8gb or 16gb of it? i'm planning to run VMs

8 GB should give you 512 of shared VRAM, thus leaving you with 7.5 GB of available RAM.
VMs don't really benefit from more VRAM, unless you do something GPU intensive with them.

 

[sparwn]

since 8gb gives 512mb of share memory does 16gb share any higher??
i read that the maximum shared memory is 1720mb

 

[inlinevolvo]

since 8gb gives 512mb of share memory does 16gb share any higher??
i read that the maximum shared memory is 1720mb

No it does not. You are stuck with 512.

 

[sparwn]

thanks for replies

if i want to upgrade the ram do i hav to replace it with ddr3L or the standard ddr3 will be fine?

 

[sweetbrat]

ok so by downloading the gfxcardstatus software

i have easily confirm without the use of that the iGpu would nvr would have been used.Even by configuring it to start with intergrated it will still shows running on nvidia then switch to intel HD

quite a waste....

Mine will stay on integrated for a lot of things, but there's also a lot of apps that make it switch. I know Skype immediately makes it switch to dedicated. Chrome used to, but I'm not sure if it still does. I'm curious...what programs are you running when it switches to the dedicated GPU?

 

[FastEddiebags]

Mine will stay on integrated for a lot of things, but there's also a lot of apps that make it switch. I know Skype immediately makes it switch to dedicated. Chrome used to, but I'm not sure if it still does. I'm curious...what programs are you running when it switches to the dedicated GPU?

Chrome still does for me.

 

[sparwn]

just confirm it was the twitter app that causes it to switch

 

[sweetbrat]

Chrome still does for me.

Thanks for the info. I still use Chrome, but I have gfxcardstatus set to only use integrated most of the time because I usually have it on my lap and don't want it to get so warm.

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just confirm it was the twitter app that causes it to switch

Interesting. I don't use Twitter, so I'm not much help. I wouldn't think that forcing it to integrated would really bother Twitter much, though. Some programs really do need the dedicated GPU or there can be problems, but I wouldn't think that Twitter would be one of them.

 

[sparwn]

haha yea i didnt expect it too i closed the twitter app then it switch to integrated and if i open it it switches to discrete but i hav it set to integrated only

if this make sense to you the PID for twitter is 242 and for skype is 257

both are from the gfx software


no one answered my ram question >.<

 

[JD92]

just confirm it was the twitter app that causes it to switch

Try the latest pre-release version of Tweetbot. In my opinion it's better than the official Twitter client, and it doesn't make your Mac switch to the dGPU.

 

[sparwn]

weird

all along after i upgraded my macbook pro to 8gb ram my integrated graphics vram was 512mb and i hav upgraded for about 3 months

i just check from the system information it says my integrated graphic is on 384mb.

is my ram failing or the firmware upgrade by apple recently reduced it?