NVIDIA Card Not Active When Using DisplayLink
 

I have a Lenovo laptop with an integrated Intel HD graphics card AND an NVIDIA GT 730M for gaming. When my laptop is not using DisplayLink via my docking station, the NVIDIA card is my default - no problem. As soon as I dock my laptop to use my two external monitors the NVIDIA card is set to Inactive.

I ran DXIDAG and have two Display tabs when docked - Display 1 and Display 2 - both with the Intel card under the Render tab. Also, when I run the NVIDIA Control Panel, I get the message that says "You are not currently using a display attached to an NVIDIA GPU."

Am I missing something in the DisplayLink config that is preventing my NVIDIA card from being used when my laptop is docked? Any assistance would be appreciated...I really want to use the higher end card when playing EVE Online.

Thanks in advance...

Hello Sinfante,

With Windows 10 Anniversary Update, the graphics card chosen by Windows in the card used for POST (boot). As you've observed, it tends to be the integrated, low end, card.
The current workaround is to disable the low end graphics card, if the platform allows it, to force the Windows kernel mode graphics driver to use the card which is left...
Unfortunately, this is part of the OS and not something DisplayLink can change. I'm discussing it with Microsoft, but it would help if you could*you use the Microsoft Windows Feedback Hub saying the following:
The indirect display driver seems to be using the low end Intel integrated graphics instead of using my high end graphics card. This is affecting the performance of the games as my high end GPU is not being used.

We've flagged this as a bug, but we need more people to report this to Microsoft to get it prioritised higher in their development.

Kind regards,
Alban

Hi Alban,

I'm experiencing the same issue. Does it mean that it has not been resolved in the 1703 windows build? Is there any particular issue submitted that we can up-vote?

Thanks!

Hi Marcin,

The Windows Feedback Hub is within your installation of Windows. I don't know if you can upvote existing content or will simply post a voluntary message to report it as I wrote.

Creators Update v1703 doesn't have any change compared to Anniversary Update v1607 regarding this.

Kind regards,
Alban

Hello
 

just disable the weaker graphic chip in "device manager" and the discrete one will work just fine with any DisplayLink device...

Perhaps Windows or DisplayLink updates have enabled this, as I got this working by turning on the laptop display in the Windows display settings, and then opening the nVidia Control Panel. In there, I was able to select the apps I wanted to run on the nVidia GPU. When I open those apps, and look at Windows Task Manager, the GPU is in-use. I can tell a difference in performance as well.

Yes, Windows was updated last year to correct that.

Hi Alban, I have a Dell Precision 5520 and using a D6000 docking station but I'm still getting this issue. I have enabled the high performance graphics card on the NVidia control panel, but it still won't work. When I open AutoCAD, it states that it is using the Intel Integrated graphics card instead.

Hello Alex, Have you got an up-to-date Windows 10 v1903+?
The fix was to large to be backported to older versions, unfortunately.

It does NOT work. Even if you disable Intel graphics by Device Manager, the monitor is NOT seen connected to NVIDIA GPU.