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Swapping between HD3000 and HD6750

R

RatzaTM

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 21, 2011
6
0
Hello everyone,

First of all, sorry if this was posted before, I quickly browsed through the last posted threads but couldn't find a match for my question, and since I'm pressed by time, I will ask here :

I recently acquired a MBP 2011 model with HD6750 and was wondering how I could swap to the on-die HD3000.

I tried using the power options so far, from what I could remember, using High Performance power plan meant using the dedicated GPU whereas Battery Life meant using the lower performance GPU.
However, I set the value to Battery life and the game I tried still ran at the same framerate as the case when I was using the Radeon, on High Performance.

Any ideas on how I could swap between them in OSX ? On the Apple site it says that the swap is done automatically, but I want the Radeon disabled, for debugging purposes, and can't manage to do so .. any suggestions ?

Thanks in advance, and hope to get this issue solved with your help.
 
some more informations about the game you play?

probably its just a not so demanding game and probably FPS-limiter is on so with HD6750 it can't get higher FPS :p
 
Meetster said:
some more informations about the game you play?

probably its just a not so demanding game and probably FPS-limiter is on so with HD6750 it can't get higher FPS :p
Click to expand...

The game is a high resource-eater, and the 6750 works on full load to deliver X framerate. However, the HD3000 should've barely start the game, and yet it works at the same X framerate as the 6750.

I'm at the moment thinking whether the game is ignoring the setting I make, and using all the resources it finds .. could that be an option also ? I'm going to try some other games in the meantime, to see whether they all behave like this or they actually use what OSX tells them to use.

No, the FPS limiter or similar is not the case, it's just that the game won't use whatever I allow it to use, and it's annoying me :| I would've fixed this on PC but I'm a newbie on MAC hardware and software, so I'm asking you guys, because you got more experience with them.
 
RatzaTM said:
The game is a high resource-eater, and the 6750 works on full load to deliver X framerate. However, the HD3000 should've barely start the game, and yet it works at the same X framerate as the 6750.

I'm at the moment thinking whether the game is ignoring the setting I make, and using all the resources it finds .. could that be an option also ? I'm going to try some other games in the meantime, to see whether they all behave like this or they actually use what OSX tells them to use.

No, the FPS limiter or similar is not the case, it's just that the game won't use whatever I allow it to use, and it's annoying me :| I would've fixed this on PC but I'm a newbie on MAC hardware and software, so I'm asking you guys, because you got more experience with them.
Click to expand...

What is the game?

I think that the forced setting is still flaky, but if you forced it to iGP then it should be using iGP.
 
RatzaTM said:
ac2
Click to expand...

Is the "x" framerate a constant one? like 60? (thinking about vsync being the limiter)

For a more academic approach I suggest you try it with a game that has an integrated benchmark system, like HL2 if you have it available. Talking about "x" framerate and no reliable benchmarking is not a good basis to do some troubleshooting.
 
mape2k said:
Is the "x" framerate a constant one? like 60? (thinking about vsync being the limiter)

For a more academic approach I suggest you try it with a game that has an integrated benchmark system, like HL2 if you have it available. Talking about "x" framerate and no reliable benchmarking is not a good basis to do some troubleshooting.
Click to expand...

No, VSync is always off, so they will run at full hardware potential. Still, I get the same framerate in both situations. Any value besides X (X being a stable 65-67) should have been easily noticeable, so it didn't matter much, thus why I didn't mention it numerically. The expected value for the IGP was around 20 - 25, according to the hardware difference between the 2 GPUs.

I will try the HL2, gonna get it from a mate, and see what the heck is going on. Thanks once again, and keep the ideas coming.

@Diamon.g : I tried switching to the profiler, but I can't lose focus of the application :\ (no key combination will work for me, so I can't alt tab or anything).
 
Last edited:
RatzaTM said:
No, VSync is always off, so they will run at full hardware potential. Still, I get the same framerate in both situations. Any value besides X (X being a stable 65-67) should have been easily noticeable, so it didn't matter much, thus why I didn't mention it numerically. The expected value for the IGP was around 20 - 25, according to the hardware difference between the 2 GPUs.

I will try the HL2, gonna get it from a mate, and see what the heck is going on. Thanks once again, and keep the ideas coming.

@Diamon.g : I tried switching to the profiler, but I can't lose focus of the application :\ (no key combination will work for me, so I can't alt tab or anything).
Click to expand...

Can you set the game to run windowed vs fullscreen?
 
mape2k said:
Are you playing on an external monitor?
Click to expand...

I'm using the internal display, not any other TV/Monitor

diamond.g said:
Can you set the game to run windowed vs fullscreen?
Click to expand...

I could set it, but for my particular needs, I have to be able to run it in full screen. I will try it at home though, at least to see if the option from the tool is used or not. Maybe the tool won't work with this particular model.

I'll keep you updated, thanks for the support guys (and girls, if any :))
 
RatzaTM said:
I'm using the internal display, not any other TV/Monitor



I could set it, but for my particular needs, I have to be able to run it in full screen. I will try it at home though, at least to see if the option from the tool is used or not. Maybe the tool won't work with this particular model.

I'll keep you updated, thanks for the support guys (and girls, if any :))
Click to expand...

Well if it is windowed, you will be able to use system profiler to see what GPU is used.
 
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