How to Force an App or Game to Use Discrete Graphics on Microsoft Surface Book?

How to set an app or a game graphics performance on Surface Book

Welcome to Quick Tips, a series where we cover every little thing about Microsoft Surface and its Accessories-related topics with an easy-to-follow step-by-step guide.

Question1

How do you set graphics performance for an app or game on a Microsoft Surface Book?

Answer

In Windows 10, you can now quickly force an app or a game on your Surface Book to use integrated or discrete graphics without the help of the NVIDIA control panel. To do so:

Note This method is applied to all Surface Book models with a dGPU base.

Go to Start > Settings.
First, you need to access Windows Settings by going to Start and clicking the Gear icon (or by using the Win + I shortcut key).
Go to System.
In Windows Settings, select “System “.
Go to Display > Graphics settings.
On the Display tab, scroll down until you can see a link to the Graphics settings.
Choose an App Type.
Two apps and game types are available on Windows 10: Desktop app and Microsoft Store app.
Choose the Microsoft Store app.
In this case, we chose the Microsoft Store app as the game we want to run on discrete graphics is installed from the Microsoft Store.
Click Select an app.
It will show a list of installed Microsoft Store apps.
Select an app or game.
Select an app for which you want to set a graphics preference. In this case, we chose a game called “Microsoft Solitaire Collection.”
Click the Options button.
Choose the High performance.
Pick the preferred graphics option you want the app to run with.
Now, the preferred graphics are set.

From now on, the app or game you added to the graphics performance preference list will always run with the predefined graphics you’ve set.

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