
GfxCardStatus - Utility for unibody Macbook Pro - princeverma
https://github.com/codykrieger/gfxCardStatus
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hiroprot
Word of warning: I ran this on my MBP with external display, and switched to
integrated mode. After that, my display wouldn't update anymore, and I had to
VNC into my computer to change the setting back to dynamic.

A "test mode" which reverts to the old setting after X seconds might be
useful.

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aonic
I've been using this utility for a while, no external displays will work under
integrated mode. This has caused some confusion for me in the past when I was
trying to connect to a projector in a meeting and realized later why the
external display was not being picked up.

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terinjokes
Works great on my computer. Some apps (looking at you, Twitter and Sparrow)
don't take the switch very well and the UI stops updating until you restart
them.

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shinratdr
That means any app that adopts the new TwUI that Twitter released for OS X
will have the same problem, no?

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arohner
On my 2011 15" MBP i7, I think I'm actually seeing less battery life on
integrated than discrete. Anyone else seeing the same behavior?

~~~
canistr
This depends entirely on what applications you are running. Some applications
which are optimized for GPUs will force your integrated card to run more hotly
because it has to perform more operations compared to your discrete card.
Therefore, it's actually more efficient to be using your discrete card when
watching a video than it is to be using your integrated card. That is why you
may see less battery life when selecting specifically your integrated card.

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interlock
I have never got the automatic switching to work, but I only switch for games,
so I'm not all that sad about it.

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ericb
Can someone explain the use-cases for this to me?

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russell_h
Some applications will cause a clean OSX install to switch to the discrete
graphics card, even while you are running on battery. For me the tipping point
was Chrome - as soon as you hit a site with flash, the discrete graphics is
enabled, and doesn't get disabled until you kill Chrome entirely (there was a
bug about this that was WONTFIX at one point, not sure what happened).

Your choices at that point are either disable flash, live with having your
batter life cut in half, or install GfxCardStatus to enforce a saner policy.

Edit: Here is the bug I mentioned:
<http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=43706>

~~~
Terretta
> _Your choices at that point are either disable flash, live with having your
> batter life cut in half, or install GfxCardStatus to enforce a saner
> policy._

Or respond to Chrome's WONTFIX with your own WONTUSE.

