How can I force Windows 10 to ONLY use my dedicated GPU

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PatrickHirsh

Hi everyone,


First, some context:

Edition: Windows 10 Home

Version: 20H2

OS build: 19042.867

Experience: Windows Feature Experience Pack 120.2212.551.0

Hardware: Dell XPS (2018ish model?). GTX 1050 and Intel Core i7-7700HQ


My Issue:

I'm experiencing very poor performance (heavy stuttering, freezing, effectively unusable at times) when using certain combinations of applications. Namely Zoom. Watching the performance tab, I can see the stuttering seems to coincide with my integrated graphics maxing out utilization. My RAM and CPU usage doesn't seem to peak or bare any affect on this.



I've tried specifying "Zoom.exe" and other apps I use commonly in the Graphics Performance Preference tab as "High Performance" to attempt to force use of my dedicated GPU, however utilization remains at 0% even after restarting my PC and the applications. My suspicion is that Windows is only selecting this hardware for 3D applications (as it gets utilized just fine when running games), however on occasion my dedicated GPU will temporarily start getting used (and the stuttering will subside), only for Windows to switch back to integrated graphics and for the stuttering to continue. Zoom in particular is the worst offender, when I'm in a meeting and the host is sharing their screen AND I'm transcoding various webcam streams simultaneously. It seemed like potentially focusing on different applications was causing windows to toggle usage of the dedicated GPU, but I couldn't find a clear pattern here. I should note that I have my power plan set to "High Performance" ("Gaming") in Power Options and my device is constantly connected to AC power.



What I'm Hoping:

Since my laptop is constantly connected to AC power and power draw is not a concern, I would like to entirely disable my integrated graphics so that my dedicated GPU (GTX 1050) is used for everything. After searching exhaustively, I can't seem to find a way to achieve this.



Surely Windows is capable of running solely on non-integrated graphics considering my home desktop has an AMD CPU with no integrated graphics and does all graphics processing on my RTX 3070. I tried setting my preferred graphics processor in NVIDIA control panel to my GTX 1050, however it seems this setting no longer works ever since Windows took control of these settings in a past Windows update: "Windows now manages selection of the graphics processor. Open Windows graphics settings". I also am unable to disable integrated graphics in my device's BIOS. Is there any way I can force windows to ONLY use my GTX 1050?



Thanks,

Patrick

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