Rarely, if you discover some game is not properly triggering the GPU switch, you can turn the feature off to force the discrete graphics card to be active instead. You can always return to the Energy preference panel to re-enable the GPU switching feature if desired.įor MacBook Pro users who want to manually control their GPU use, you can use a third party tool like GFXCardStatus which has been around for quite some time and still works on most modern MacBook Pro models as well.Īs mentioned earlier, most MacBook Pro users will not need to adjust this setting and should not adjust this setting, instead letting Mac OS determine what apps should use what GPU as necessary. This may decrease battery life.” – if you are not OK with that do not disable this option Note the text which states this may decrease battery life on the MacBook Pro “When automatic switching is disabled, your computer will always use high-performance graphics.Uncheck the box next to “Automatic graphics switching”.Go to the  Apple menu and choose “System Preferences” and then go to “Energy” control panel.This will disable GPU switching and force the MacBook Pro to use the higher powered discrete graphics card rather than the integrated GPU. How to Disable Graphics Card Switching on MacBook Pro This may lead to better performance but it will almost certainly impact battery life on the MacBook Pro as well. Note that by disabling GPU switching, you will always use the discrete higher performance graphics card, which uses more energy. Generally speaking GPU switching is a great feature that should not be modified or adjusted in any way, but some advanced Mac users may wish to disable the automatic graphics card switching feature on MacBook Pro models.

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