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Notebooks now have 2 videocards and one can switch between them on the fly.

How can I do it on my PC-box at home? I want to switch between video cores in processor and discrete video. My monitor should be plugged into only one place (discrete videocard or motherboard).

Is this possible, or can it only be done by plugging monitor cable either to videocard or motherboard?

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If your desktop machine has issues with battery life, you're probably doing something wrong ;-) – Daniel Beck Oct 15 '11 at 11:18
@Daniel Beck I have no baterry (except notebook), I'm just mad about silence now (also it would be power saving) and just for interest! – Sergey Oct 15 '11 at 11:22
Ughh, I would kill myself if I knew graphics driver developers were forced to support such a feature . . . – surfasb Oct 15 '11 at 12:17
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3 Answers

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There is some additional infrastructure to support the switching, along with some shared infrastructure.

Clearly there is only one output, so that is shared, but there is also some ACPI extensions that allows the switching to happen, and some userland software so that windows can deal with the transition to a different card.

If you want silence, but power, then there are few fanless but still relatively powerful graphics cards out there: SPARKLE SXS4501024D5SNP

Gigabyte do a fanless series too.

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tnx, just wanted to know if this crazy feature could be made without hard work=). Anyway I think switching is good not only for laptops. – Sergey Oct 15 '11 at 13:03
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The notebooks that support switching from one graphic card (GPU) to another one usually use Nvidia Optimus technology (I don't know if there a similar technology) which is only available for notebooks running Windows 7.

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monitor should be plugged into only on place (discrete videocard or motherboard). Is this possible now?

This is just extremely alogical. How to get data from disconnected input? Two cards - two inputs into one monitor or two monitor. Period

PS: "Учи азбуку, пацан!"

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мнение старика мне не интересно, тем более если ты в первый раз услышал о гибридной графике. Хоть там и один выход. Как получать данные - если материнка такое позволяла бы, вот как. – Sergey Oct 15 '11 at 12:36
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