the game should force mobile grafic cards

Kuiki

hi, i played ns2 since build 195 and a lot of people get with each build more performence, but not me since now that i find out, that the game has problems with notebooks wich has grafic chips and mobile grafic cards. ( I have a geforce gt 540m and the intel HD3000 chip) I played a little bit with the nvidia control and system manger and deactivated the intel HD, so my notebook only uses the geforce and ns2 now work with 40 frames :-). Normaly the games recognize that they have to use the mobile grafic card but not ns2. maybe this could be fixed :-)

Xarius

This is interesting. How do you turn off your built in graphic chip?

Floodinator

Normally via advanced bios settings.

Nordic

I thought most laptops like that had a physical switch. The reason it isn't alway the 540m is because the thing is a power hog compared to the intel hd 3000. Whats your laptop model?

BloodyIron

Modern nVidia graphics implementations use something called Optimus which is a combination of a software and hardware swiching mechanism. When the software detects something happening that really needs the GPU, it turns it on and initializes it. When said thing stops, it turns it off. There are ways you can force the GPU to always be on, and also disable the Intel HD graphics card (NOT GRAFICS), mostly found in the BIOS.

As for the OP, you only kind of explain how you know that it wasn't using your 640M. You need to explain more. Also, it is more likely a bug with the Optimus software as most games typically do not pick and choose the available graphics cards, they just use what is available.

countbasie

Check your drivers, there should be a function for turning off the better chip while in battery mode - and vice versa.

ScardyBob

Its an issue with Nvidia's Optimus system, not NS2. You may want to post on Nvidia's website to see if they'll include a preset for NS2 in a future driver update.