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NVIDIA Optimus Workaround (make it fold)

Posted: Tue Apr 07, 2020 4:14 pm
by derWaldschrat
After a lot of fighting with my laptop and its GTX 765M Optimus setup, I finally found a both trivial and stupid workaround to make it fold on the GPU.

Had the usual problem of BAD_WORK_UNIT due to clGetDeviceInfo returning -5 (or something like that), because the laptop insisted on switching back to the Intel on-board graphics just when the job was about to start.
I tried everything in the NVIDIA control panel and anywhere else I could think of to make it use the NVIDIA GPU instead of Intel, but nothing worked. Also disabling the Intel chip in the BIOS didn't work, because it's what's called a "muxless" setup, so the Intel card is required to get the picture from the Nvidia GPU to the screen. There isn't even an option in the BIOS to disable it.

Anyway, long story short, here is the solution or workaround: Open NVIDIA Experience and leave it open. Or alternatively, open CPUID HWMonitor and leave it open. Both programs somehow and for whatever reasons switch the system to using the NVIDIA GPU and keep it there.
And with the real GPU running, F@H also runs happily.

Re: NVIDIA Optimus Workaround (make it fold)

Posted: Tue Apr 07, 2020 5:54 pm
by Jesse_V
Hi and welcome to the forum.

This is good to know, thanks!

Re: NVIDIA Optimus Workaround (make it fold)

Posted: Wed Apr 08, 2020 4:42 am
by PantherX
Welcome to the F@H Forum derWaldschrat,

I am aware that in 2013, I had a laptop with Nvidia Optimus and the way I got it to work was in Nvidia Control Panel, I added all FAH executables to open in high performance mode. After that, never had any issues. These articles might be of some guide:
https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers ... ettings%3F
https://www.dell.com/support/article/en ... em?lang=en