10 replies to this topic

[Hassanbasil]

Hello,

I've bought a new laptop with an nVidia Geforce GT540M card, which supports DX11, for some reason i can't seem to be able to create a device with feature level 11.0, i looked at the device caps and feature level 11 is listed there, i have the nVidia latest driver, though, there's a problem that the dxdiag (dx diagnostic tool) dialog shows info about intel HD graphics - so i'm somewhat confused, in the system tab it shows "DirectX Version: DirectX 11", but the Display tab shows the intel driver information.

is the problem from the hardware side or my code? here's how i create my device:

  D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL level;
  D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL desiredLevels[1] = { D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_11_0 };
  HX_PRINTERR_HR ( D3D11CreateDevice ( __Impl__->DXGIPrimaryAdapter, D3D_DRIVER_TYPE_UNKNOWN, NULL, __Impl__->registerDesc->deviceLayers,
   desiredLevels, 1, D3D11_SDK_VERSION, &__Impl__->D3DDevice, &level, &__Impl__->D3DDeviceContext ), HX_UNABLETOCREATEDEVICE );

this fails with no errors from the debug layer, also, if i leave the feature levels to NULL, it works but the returned "level" is 10.1, what is the problem?

Thanks for your time.

[Vertex333]

The problem is, that your program starts with the default graphics chip, which is the integrated intel one.
Heard about nVidia optimus?

Simply start your application from the dedicated nVidia card, or go into the nVidia control panel and add your exe to the high performance profile, so your program always starts with the nvidia card.

Maybe there is also a way to explicitly force the nvidia card (nvidia extension/SDK or so?)

[hupsilardee]

Enumerate the available DXGI adapters. One of these will correspond to the intel card, and another will correspond to the nvidia card. You can probably work out which is which by checking the amount of dedicated video memory each card has (use IDXGIAdapter::GetDesc())

[Hassanbasil]

hupsilardee, on 03 February 2012 - 07:19 PM, said:

Enumerate the available DXGI adapters. One of these will correspond to the intel card, and another will correspond to the nvidia card. You can probably work out which is which by checking the amount of dedicated video memory each card has (use IDXGIAdapter::GetDesc())

There's only one adapter enumerated, which is unfortunately, the intel HD graphics

Vertex333, on 03 February 2012 - 05:46 PM, said:

The problem is, that your program starts with the default graphics chip, which is the integrated intel one.
Heard about nVidia optimus?

Simply start your application from the dedicated nVidia card, or go into the nVidia control panel and add your exe to the high performance profile, so your program always starts with the nvidia card.

Maybe there is also a way to explicitly force the nvidia card (nvidia extension/SDK or so?)

yeah looks like i can explicitly choose which programs are forced to use the nVidia GPU through the panel, kinda annoying but guess i'll have to live with it

thanks for the replies
EDIT: though, using Visual Studio's Debug/Release runs cannot be explicitly ran with the nVidia graphics, is it possible to run applications with nVidia graphics forced from within VS?

[iedoc]

change your battery mode to high performance

[Hassanbasil]

iedoc, on 04 February 2012 - 12:43 AM, said:

change your battery mode to high performance

It is on high performance already

[iedoc]

ok i just mentioned that because sometimes if a laptop is not plugged in or on high performance, it will use the integrated graphics card instead of the more powerful one

[iedoc]

try checking out this topic

http://www.gamedev.n...phics-adapters/

[Hassanbasil]

thank you for the link, i figured out all the points he concluded there, though, after using IDXGIFactory1, now it enumerates both adapters, but only the intel HD adapter has available outputs, the caps viewer is looking weird also..here's a screenshot (second NVIDIA card is selected below)

both cards has the same names there, but clicking them shows this: first one: description says intel HD graphics, dsecond one: description says nVidia geforce 540M
but the second one, which is supposed to be the good GPU, has only "outputs" listed under it and it cannot be expanded, meaning there are no outputs, which is the problem, now another thing is, the first one, which is described as intel HD graphics, has DirectX11 listed in it, and it supports feature level 11, so im a little bit confused

[iedoc]

ok, It sounds like you know what your looking for, but i'll just explain it in detail juuust in case. So when you first open up the caps view, on the left side, under the DXGI 1.1 devices, you should see 3 folders, one is for your nvidia graphics card, another for your integrated gpu, and the third is the reference device. of course the one you are interested in is the nvidia graphics card, so expand that folder. Under it, you should see at least 4 folders, first being outputs, second Direct3D 10.0, third Direct3D 10.1, and last being Direct3D 11. and of course we are interested in D3D 11, so expand that folder. the first folder you see under that is the HIGHEST feature level. Whatever this folder says is the highest feature level your graphics card handles. On my laptop right now, it says D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_10_0 (my card doesn't support feature level 11). If your card says D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_11_0, then that's good.

I know you already did all this, just was being thorough, i'm not saying all that because i think you don't know what your doing. but to me, it sounds like you need to reinstall the CORRECT driver for your card. theres a lot of different drivers, and if you install the wrong one, things can happen. I always think it's a pain installing the correct one because of all the drivers that have almost identical names, not to mention you need to make sure you install the right one depending on the version of windows you are using, like windows 7 64 bit for example.

That's probably a lot of stuff that's useless to you, so sorry. but my recommendation is to reinstall your nvidia driver, because at least for me, your explanation for what you see in the caps view sounds wrong, and that's more likely a problem with your drivers. I could be totally wrong about that, but i'm trying ;)

[Hassanbasil]

Thanks for the reply i actually installed the correct driver and it did nothing, then after it, i installed an even newer beta driver and it also didn't work, the thing is, the caps seem somewhat confusing because the actual card's entry is empty, but the intel chip is not, although it has the same specs as the nVidia chip, which is somewhat weird, the intel GPU's specs SHOULD be able to run dx11 as it's listed there (see screenshot above), but it just doesn't work
one more final note for anyone willing to help: running my debug/release applications from the folder itself works fine, and it runs with nVidia GPU, but running it from visual studio or PIX won't work, and that's the whole thing