Switching to your dedicated GPU

Many laptops and some PCs have more than one Graphics card: a dedicated one (which is the one that should be used for gaming) and an integrated one on the CPU. 

You can check if your PC has two GPUs under Device Manager > Display adapters.

Sometimes, games might not use your strongest one as default, resulting in issues such as much lower performance, stuttering, etc. To switch those games to your PC's dedicated GPU, you can do the following:

For Windows 10/11:

  1. Open Settings (you can use the Windows search function)
  2. Go to System > Display > Graphics (Graphics settings for Win10)
  3. Press Browse and find the game's executable file (e.g., for Steam is usually under C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/name of the game/name of the game.exe) and then select it and click on Add
  4. After the game is added to the list, select Options, select High Performance, and click on Save
  5. Your game should now run on the optimal GPU, so go ahead and run it

For older Windows versions, this is done through the GPU's application.

For Nvidia:

  1. Right-click on your desktop and select the NVIDIA Control Panel
  2. Go to 3D Settings > Manage 3D settings > Program Settings
  3. Select your game from the dropdown menu 1. Select a program to customize - if your game is not listed, press Add and look at the new list. If it's still not there, press on Browse and find the game's executable file (e.g., for Steam is usually under C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/name of the game/name of the game.exe) and then select it and click on Open
  4. From the 2. Specify the settings for this program menu, select Preferred graphics processor for this program, and change to High-performance NVIDIA processor
  5. Hit the Save and start your game

For AMD:

  • Please follow their official and up-to-date guide here.

PLEASE REMEMBER TO ALWAYS BE ON THE LATEST GPU DRIVERS:

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