
NVIDIA's Optimus technology shows its graphics switching adroitness on video - phsr
http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/03/nvidias-optimus-technology-shows-its-graphics-switching-adroitn/
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MikeCapone
Now we're talking. I didn't think that the previous way to have 2 GPUs on a
board made much sense.

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fierarul
I would have also liked to see a fallback on soft rendering in that demo app
(and the FPS number).

But it would have most likely crashed the system if they would have started
the app while the GPU was removed physically.

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briansmith
The system is rendering Windows Aero without the NVIDIA GPU being enabled.
That means there must be another DirectX-capable integerated GPU in the system
that is on when the NVIDIA GPU is disabled.

How does the system decide when to switch over to the second GPU?

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erik
Optiums is built for Intel's new Core i cpu's, where the cpu has a moderately
capable gpu integrated on the same die.

What I've read indicates that Nvidia is using a database of application
profiles to determine if the dedicated gpu should be activated.

edit: I just read that the drivers will use heuristics so that application
profiles won't be needed in most cases. Basically, if an application
initializes DirectX, CUDA or OpenGL, the dedicated gpu will be activated by
the drivers.

[http://blogs.nvidia.com/ntersect/2010/02/world-meet-
optimus....](http://blogs.nvidia.com/ntersect/2010/02/world-meet-optimus.html)

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pmjordan
Apparently [1] you can also add profiles for enabled apps in case the
heuristic fails for some reason, or you want to force using the low-power CPU.

[1] c't Magazin 6/2010

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pmjordan
Typo: low-power _GPU_.

