If so, the GPU is powered up from an idle state and is passed all rendering calls. When a user launches an application, the graphics driver tries to determine whether the application would benefit from the discrete GPU.

A project called Bumblebee is an alternative open source implementation of Optimus support for Linux. Official supported operating systems by Nvidia are Microsoft Windows and Linux. Switching between the graphics processors is designed to be completely seamless and to happen 'behind the scenes'.

Otherwise the application is served by a rendering context that uses the integrated GPU. When an application is being launched that is determined to benefit from the performance of the discrete GPU, the discrete GPU is powered up and the application is served by a rendering context via that GPU. The technology mainly targets mobile PCs such as notebooks. Optimus saves battery life by automatically switching the power of the discrete graphics processing unit (GPU) off when it is not needed and switching it on when needed again. Nvidia Optimus is a computer GPU switching technology created by Nvidia which, depending on the resource load generated by client software applications, will seamlessly switch between two graphics adapters within a computer system in order to provide either maximum performance or minimum power draw from the system's graphics rendering hardware.Ī typical platform includes both a lower-performance integrated graphics processor by Intel/ AMD and a high-performance one by Nvidia. JSTOR ( March 2010) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message).Please improve this article by adding secondary or tertiary sources. This article relies excessively on references to primary sources.

Nvidia graphics driver