- #GFXCARDSTATUS FOR WINDOWS INSTALL#
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- #GFXCARDSTATUS FOR WINDOWS WINDOWS 10#
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The same test run on the Intel HD4000 turned in a score just over 19 fps. The Retina Macbook Pro's NVIDIA GT 650M scored 35 fps in Cinebench's OpenGL test. Of course, the battery life hit isn't that much below Apple's stated rating, especially considering the difference in performance.
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So instead of 7 hours of continuous operation, the Retina MacBook Pro running any of these apps might instead only last 6 to 6.5 hours under similar conditions. And seemingly innocuous apps, including Twitter, Reeder, Transmit, PathFinder, Skype, Delicious Library, Drive Genius, and NetNewsWire, among others, could cause the discrete GPU to power on and run as long as they are open. These frameworks rely on GPU acceleration and gain a performance advantage from running on better hardware.īut running the discrete GPU also consumes considerably more power. Other frameworks that cause an automatic switch include OpenGL, OpenCL, Quartz Composer, and CoreGraphics. The reason is that Apple's system automatically switches to the higher-powered GPU when apps use certain graphics-related frameworks, like CoreAnimation. When Apple first introduced automatic switching with the Sandy Bridge-based MacBook Pros in 2010, users discovered that some apps that shouldn't require the power of a discrete GPU were in fact causing OS X to switch anyway. It was merely a side effect of Apple's implementation of automatic switching between integrated graphics and the discrete NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M GPU. The issues we ran into that caused our less-than-stellar battery life the first time around were actually nothing new. To achieve this, we overrode Apple's automatic graphics switching using the donation-ware app gfxCardStatus to force OS X to rely solely on Intel's integrated HD4000 GPU. But we've been using the Retina MacBook Pro a little more since our review published a couple of weeks ago, and have discovered that the massive 95Whr battery is actually capable of lasting at least 8 hours or more. Despite the larger battery, though, we were a little disappointed in the battery life we experienced while reviewing it, which was a half hour or more shy of Apple's promised 7 hours. The EFI solution could be something to look at, but I would keep that as the last resort option since it's likely Windows will not automatically get the drivers.The Retina MacBook Pro eschews spinning mechanical drives-both optical and magnetic varieties-for solid state flash and tons of extra battery. So, my second question was really about that: if I don't do anything, does Windows automatically gets the discrete GPU drivers?
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However, if it gets installed automatically during the installation, the the install will fail since the computer lasts 10-15 seconds with the discrete GPU.
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I can boot windows in safe mode and make sure the discrete GPU driver is not loaded.
Since I need the machine to run windows, I'm curious if we can make it always boot on windows since it will never use MacOS I have never used bootcamp (I use Parallels for all Windows apps), I have no idea.
With the discrete gpu disabled, using gfxCardStatus, the computer is totally stable. I received an old 2010 that has gpu problems it does work for a little while then reboots and will also reboot instantly if an external display is plugged. In this case, we have a device that needs a computer to control it using Windows software.
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I believe Windows 10 is now using something like EFI, and it is possible its EFI variables could be modified in a similar way.
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If not Installing the ATI Drivers does not work, Any Operating system that uses those same (or equivalent) EFI variables could be influenced by making similar changes using ArchLinux or a similar method. Regular ArchLinux (booted off a DVD) does not crash when the Discrete GPU is simply ignored. I expect Windows would then ignore the Discrete GPU entirely. There may be far simpler ways to use Windows, such as simply not installing the ATI Drivers for the Discrete GPU.
Once you make semi-permanent changes to those EFI variables, then delete the Mac Drivers for the Discrete GPU, the discrete GPU is ignored. The more complex Mac solution is to use ArchLinux to provide access to the variables in the EFI partition, not normally accessible under MacOS. Disabling the discrete GPU also disables using an External display, as only the discrete GPU has the interfaces for External displays. They are both open source Mac software, and posted on GitHub. I think you already saw, on another thread on the 2011 MacBook Pro, that you can install the original gfxcardstatus, or the more advanced version improved by Steve Schow.