Silent Hunter 3 vs. Nvidia Optimus

Tonga · 11-26-11, 11:44 AM

Hey my fellow Captains and Kaleus,

first of all, I'd like to thank Fish and jimbuna again for their kind help with their mod suggestions for SH3. You guys have been a great help!

My post is mainly aimed at those of you who have a laptop at hand which uses the NVIDIA Optimus technology. I myself have a Lenovo Z570 which has an Intel i7-2630QM together with an Nvidia GeForce GT 540M, 4GB RAM etc. Optimus basically uses the integrated Intel GPU to save energy and - when needed - activates the more powerful Nvidia GPU to do all the graphics stuff.
This works well for SH4 and SH5, but for some odd reason the system doesn't recognize SH3, which results in SH3 being executed via the Intel GPU, without any Antialiasing.

There are many threads on the internet where people recommend to change the Nvidia driver settings so that the Nvidia GPU is always used as the preferred GPU, and if that doesn't help, to start the application via right click and the option "execute with graphics processor" (and then to choose the Nvidia). This is meant to function as an override, so that the Nvidia GPU is forced - but not for SH3 as it seems. The Nvidia GPU remains idle or even off, no luck.

Has anyone of you ever come across this problem and knows how to fix it?
How do I make Optimus recognise SH3 in order to force the system to switch over to the Nvidia GPU?

Any help is much appreciated!

The Hess

NB: Almost forgot to mention - SH3 Vanilla isn't recognised as well as with GWX or LSH installed. Any resolution changing stuff like widescreen mods or the HighRes fix is deactivated.

NB #2: Also tried to use nHancer, but it fails to start up because it doesn't find the Nvidia GPU (turned off by Optimus). nVidia Inspector works, however I am probably not experienced enough to find the right switch in there (if it even exists) to switch to Nvidia permanently.

11-26-11, 11:44 AM	#1
Tonga Formerly Kpt. Hess Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: 39.20 nmi from U 9 Posts: 54 Downloads: 261 Uploads: 0	Silent Hunter 3 vs. Nvidia Optimus Hey my fellow Captains and Kaleus, first of all, I'd like to thank Fish and jimbuna again for their kind help with their mod suggestions for SH3. You guys have been a great help! My post is mainly aimed at those of you who have a laptop at hand which uses the NVIDIA Optimus technology. I myself have a Lenovo Z570 which has an Intel i7-2630QM together with an Nvidia GeForce GT 540M, 4GB RAM etc. Optimus basically uses the integrated Intel GPU to save energy and - when needed - activates the more powerful Nvidia GPU to do all the graphics stuff. This works well for SH4 and SH5, but for some odd reason the system doesn't recognize SH3, which results in SH3 being executed via the Intel GPU, without any Antialiasing. There are many threads on the internet where people recommend to change the Nvidia driver settings so that the Nvidia GPU is always used as the preferred GPU, and if that doesn't help, to start the application via right click and the option "execute with graphics processor" (and then to choose the Nvidia). This is meant to function as an override, so that the Nvidia GPU is forced - but not for SH3 as it seems. The Nvidia GPU remains idle or even off, no luck. Has anyone of you ever come across this problem and knows how to fix it? How do I make Optimus recognise SH3 in order to force the system to switch over to the Nvidia GPU? Any help is much appreciated! The Hess NB: Almost forgot to mention - SH3 Vanilla isn't recognised as well as with GWX or LSH installed. Any resolution changing stuff like widescreen mods or the HighRes fix is deactivated. NB #2: Also tried to use nHancer, but it fails to start up because it doesn't find the Nvidia GPU (turned off by Optimus). nVidia Inspector works, however I am probably not experienced enough to find the right switch in there (if it even exists) to switch to Nvidia permanently. Last edited by Tonga; 11-26-11 at 11:58 AM.