New Micrsoft Surface Book I7 With Nvidia Dgpu- Chief Only Sees The Intel Gpu?

[Seascape]

Hi

 

Twas time to upgrade to chief x7 (from X4)- yep I'm slow... so I took the opportunity to upgrade my pc to a Microsoft Surface Book i7 with dedicated Nvidia GPU. Been running for years on an old desktop with Quad core Q6600 and a Nvidia GTX 460 graphics card. Don't do heaps of 3D so the old system has lasted well. 

 

On the new Surface Book everything installed without a hitch but when I look at the About tab in Chief it says its using the internal Intel GPU and not the faster dedicated Nvidia GPU.

I have loaded all current updates etc for Windows 10 and surface book firmware.

 

Any ideas why chief only reports the Intel 520 graphics GPU?

 

 

 

 

[KirkClemons]

NVIDIA uses an "Optimus" driver to manage switchable graphics.

You can configure this to use a specific card when Chief Architect is launched:

http://www.howtogeek.com/136123/htg-explains-what-you-need-to-know-about-nvidia-optimus/

[Seascape]

thanks Kirk,  I'll try that and let people know how it goes..

[kn8hansen]

Just wanted to chime in as I use Chief Architect x7 on a Surface Book with an i7, 8GB RAM, and dGPU.  I did the same thing that Kirk suggested.  I went to the Control Panel>Nvidia Control Panel and set Chief Architect to always use the dGPU.  Chief now sees and reports the Nvidia card in the preferences.  The only downside to this is that you can't detach the tablet portion with Chief running (which probably is a good thing anyway).

[Seascape]

thanks, did as suggested, used NVIDIA control panel to set Chief and always dGPU​

[Pkbldr]

So, how about a review of how Chief performs on the new Surface Book?

[tahoebrian5]

Somewhat related... I'm using a surface pro 4, i5 and it works just fine. It doesn't have a graphics card, only integrated graphics but still seems to be just fine, but I'm not really doing any heavy duty renderings.

[elementsdesign]

Any further comments on using Chief on a Surface? I'm considering  moving to a Surface, possibly even a surface book. I'd love to hear what you love and what you hate about it. Thanks!

[Toby-PKBLDR]

On 11/25/2016 at 0:52 PM, elementsdesign said:

Any further comments on using Chief on a Surface? I'm considering  moving to a Surface, possibly even a surface book. I'd love to hear what you love and what you hate about it. Thanks!

I bought a Surface Pro 4, I7 and am very happy with it. That said, in my case at least, it is not a replacement for my desktop with dedicated graphics card.

I love it for doing on site as-built drawings. (I'm told the touch functionality will be enhanced in upcoming Chief updates also.) I was productive almost immediately and have done 5 "whole house" drawings with it and several more partials. I have not found it lacking in 2D  whatsoever though it does take some getting used to. Screen resolution requires good eyes or, as in my case, good glasses. This is a problem with my 4K desktop monitors as well so not unique to the Surface. (That may be addressed in coming updates as well) I would recommend a dedicated tool set for working in tablet (touch) mode. Battery life under these conditions is disappointing though I've never actually run out. Come close but haven't yet. I'd say this is about as demanding on the processor and thus the battery as it gets. Just knocking around wirelessly on my lap the battery easily lasts 4 -5 hours of continuous use in browsers and such.

I connect it to a Surface dock at my desk and have a AOC Q2778VQE monitor, wireless mouse and keyboard connected and it works flawlessly. I've connected it to a Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter on a large TV display and it works fine as well. We have this setup in our office and clients love being able to visualize their project in this way. I bring the SP4 to the conference table on battery power, no cables, wireless mouse and Surface keyboard. It's so unimposing, almost like a sketchpad. You can pull up photos from the web and from files and then go back to the plan...

In 3D I can easily 'out kick my coverage'. I'm not certain what the choke point is, memory / graphics but once it happens I've had to start over; closing the program and rebooting the SP4.

I have not regretted our purchase of the SP4 once. I would definitely buy all of the processor and memory that you can afford, and all that you can borrow. I tried several lower level units prior to my purchase and found a marked difference. I did try a Surface Book but it had problems. They had just been released and I suspect they needed to work out some of the kinks but I'm very happy with the Surface Pro.