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

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Question

How to set graphics performance for an app or game on Microsoft Surface Book?

Answer

In Windows 10, you can now easily 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 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 click the Gear icon (or by using 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.
There are two app and game types available on Windows 10, Desktop app and Microsoft Store app.
Choose Microsoft Store app.
In this case, we chose the Microsoft Store app as the game that 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 app.
Select an app or game.
Select an app you want to set a graphics preference. In this case, we choose a game called “Microsoft Solitaire Collection”.
Click the Options button.
Choose the High performance.
Now pick your preferred graphics option you want the app to run with.
Now the preferred graphics is 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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