[SOLVED] Gf's laptop is using onboard and not her graphics card

[Menace94]

As the title says, my girlfriend recently bought a laptop which she paid a hefty price for from laptops direct, which they advertised as a 144hz, I go to double check on her display settings before buying her a 144hz external monitor and there is no option for the 144hz, which I fount strange, I then noticed that her gpu was reading intel HD Graphics some random number and not her GTX 1060, I noticed both of them in the display adaptor when checking the device manager to see if her graphics card is connected and being read, I also checked task manager to see if it was was being used and it wasn't. How would I go to fix this? would disabling the onboard graphics make her display stop working? That was what I was going to do before coming here, also is the onboard gpu stopping the display from having 144hz?

Thanks for the help

 

[Phaaze88]

What happens if a game is fired up?
Some of these devices have a switch built in that dynamically swaps between iGPU and dGPU. It's a power saving feature.
It doesn't need to use the dGPU if there's nothing really going on, right?

 

[RTX 2080]

As the title says, my girlfriend recently bought a laptop which she paid a hefty price for from laptops direct, which they advertised as a 144hz, I go to double check on her display settings before buying her a 144hz external monitor and there is no option for the 144hz, which I fount strange, I then noticed that her gpu was reading intel HD Graphics some random number and not her GTX 1060, I noticed both of them in the display adaptor when checking the device manager to see if her graphics card is connected and being read, I also checked task manager to see if it was was being used and it wasn't. How would I go to fix this? would disabling the onboard graphics make her display stop working? That was what I was going to do before coming here, also is the onboard gpu stopping the display from having 144hz?

Thanks for the help

Is your girlfriend trying to play games at 144 Hz or does she simply want to use the computer for everyday tasks at 144 Hz? What is the resolution of both the laptop monitor and the monitor that you are plugging into her laptop?

 

[Menace94]

Ahh right I didn't try to launch a game, but her games do seem to run fine, she has played sea of thieves which I believe wouldn't run on integrated graphics right? So if it does switch onto the 1060 will the 144hz desktop rate kick in also and will it automatically run the game at 144hz? because I was thinking of getting her a 144 external monitor for her as she has the other peripherals.

 

[Menace94]

Is your girlfriend trying to play games at 144 Hz or does she simply want to use the computer for everyday tasks at 144 Hz? What is the resolution of both the laptop monitor and the monitor that you are plugging into her laptop?

To be honest I don't think she cares that much, but if her laptop is 144, I kind of want for her to get the most out of it and she bought the laptop for solely playing games and the resolution of the monitor is 2560x1440 as for her laptop resolution, I'm not too sure the screen size is 15.6"

 

[Menace94]

What happens if a game is fired up?
Some of these devices have a switch built in that dynamically swaps between iGPU and dGPU. It's a power saving feature.
It doesn't need to use the dGPU if there's nothing really going on, right?

Ahh right I didn't try to launch a game, but her games do seem to run fine, she has played sea of thieves which I believe wouldn't run on integrated graphics right? So if it does switch onto the 1060 will the 144hz desktop rate kick in also and will it automatically run the game at 144hz? because I was thinking of getting her a 144 external monitor for her as she has the other peripherals.


sorry forgot to hit the reply button, thanks for your help btw both of you

 

[RTX 2080]

To be honest I don't think she cares that much, but if her laptop is 144, I kind of want for her to get the most out of it and she bought the laptop for solely playing games and the resolution of the monitor is 2560x1440 as for her laptop resolution, I'm not too sure the screen size is 15.6"

Well, that's unfortunate, because a GTX 1060 is a GPU released more than 4 years ago which was designed for gaming at 1080p 60 fps. Running games at more than twice the frame rate on a monitor with a resolution with almost twice the pixels of 1080p is going to require a significantly more powerful GPU than that.

Depending on what in-game graphical settings she chooses, she might be able to play her game on that 1440p monitor at 60 Hz, but there isn't any chance at all she'll get it running close to 144 fps, even with all graphical settings set to low.

1440p class GPUs are 70-series GPUs, like the 1070, 2070, and 3070. Pushing frame rates all the way to 144 fps requires even more graphical horsepower and scales linearly with frame rate: 144 fps requires 2.4x the graphical processing power that 60 fps does.

 

[Phaaze88]

It shouldn't run on the iGPU. If it does, it shouldn't be too much trouble to go into Nvidia Control Panel and make it do so... oh wait, I think it's called Nvidia Optimus when using laptops?

The game(s) will run at 144hz if the hardware can actually handle it with the game settings chosen.

 

[Menace94]

Well, that's unfortunate, because a GTX 1060 is a GPU released more than 4 years ago which was designed for gaming at 1080p 60 fps. Running games at more than twice the frame rate on a monitor with a resolution with almost twice the pixels of 1080p is going to require a significantly more powerful GPU than that.

Depending on what in-game graphical settings she chooses, she might be able to play her game on that 1440p monitor at 60 Hz, but there isn't any chance at all she'll get it running close to 144 fps, even with all graphical settings set to low.

1440p class GPUs are 70-series GPUs, like the 1070, 2070, and 3070. Pushing frame rates all the way to 144 fps requires even more graphical horsepower and scales linearly with frame rate: 144 fps requires 2.4x the graphical processing power that 60 fps does.

So at that monitor resolution you don't think she will get decent enough fps on a game such as valorant or minecraft, I don't think she is wanting to play heavily demanding games such as cyberpunk, icarus or red dead redemption, you would recommend a 60hz monitor? I don't think she is that interested to play games at 144hz, but I was just trying to get the most out of her laptop, my RX 580 does the job for my 144hz on CSGO, I don't really play other games

 

[Menace94]

So at that monitor resolution you don't think she will get decent enough fps on a game such as valorant or minecraft, I don't think she is wanting to play heavily demanding games such as cyberpunk, icarus or red dead redemption, you would recommend a 60hz monitor? I don't think she is that interested to play games at 144hz, but I was just trying to get the most out of her laptop, my RX 580 does the job for my 144hz on CSGO, I don't really play other games

but CSGO is more a CPU based game I guess

 

[RTX 2080]

So at that monitor resolution you don't think she will get decent enough fps on a game such as valorant or minecraft, I don't think she is wanting to play heavily demanding games such as cyberpunk, icarus or red dead redemption, you would recommend a 60hz monitor? I don't think she is that interested to play games at 144hz, but I was just trying to get the most out of her laptop, my RX 580 does the job for my 144hz on CSGO, I don't really play other games

The jump from 1080p 144 fps to 1440p 144 fps requires a significant boost in graphical horsepower. Additionally, a RX 580 generally has better performance than a GTX 1060 (at least in 2021). It's not that a 144 Hz monitor is off the table for your girlfriend's laptop, it's that a 1440p 144 Hz monitor is. If it were me, I'd return/sell the 1440p monitor and replace it with a 1080p 144 Hz monitor.

 

[Menace94]

The jump from 1080p 144 fps to 1440p 144 fps requires a significant boost in graphical horsepower. Additionally, a RX 580 generally has better performance than a GTX 1060 (at least in 2021). It's not that a 144 Hz monitor is off the table for your girlfriend's laptop, it's that a 1440p 144 Hz monitor is. If it were me, I'd return/sell the 1440p monitor and replace it with a 1080p 144 Hz monitor.

Thanks for your help, also this was the monitor I was looking to get for her https://www.overclockers.co.uk/lg-2...GsjcuZ_uMzE-1631755398-0-gqNtZGzNAyWjcnBszQt9 I am guessing this is 1440p?

 

[RTX 2080]

Thanks for your help, also this was the monitor I was looking to get for her https://www.overclockers.co.uk/lg-2...GsjcuZ_uMzE-1631755398-0-gqNtZGzNAyWjcnBszQt9 I am guessing this is 1440p?

It says 2560x1440 in the link, so yep, 1440p.

I'd recommend a 24 inch 1080p monitor (which is 1920x1080 pixels). Anything larger than 24 inches and image quality is going to degrade.

 

[Menace94]

It says 2560x1440 in the link, so yep, 1440p.

I'd recommend a 24 inch 1080p monitor (which is 1920x1080 pixels). Anything larger than 24 inches and image quality is going to degrade.

Alright, thank you for your help I appreciate it, take care and stay safe

 

[RTX 2080]

Alright, thank you for your help I appreciate it, take care and stay safe

Sure thing.