Does the Alienware 15 R4 Support Nvidia Optimus?

Hi @_OCB,

The design of the new 15 R4 makes it so that the LCD/Screen is controlled directly by the nVidia card. The Intel card controls only the USB C port. This means that if you use this port for video, it will throughput the signal from the Intel UHD card. Otherwise, the card cannot de enabled manually or via Optimus unless there's an option to right-click an app and selecting which Graphics Processor to use.

No option for fn+f7. It doesn't do anything.

@Alienware-Eimy does the Alienware 17 R5 also not support Optimus mode on non-GSync configurations? I see that there is some marketing information on it's product page stating it can get 10 hours of battery life with a 99Wh battery and FHD screen. This document also still states that Optimus should be available on the 15 R4 / 17 R5 so long as you do not have a GSync configuration.

Hi @fleaplus, @_OCB, @denzbs,

Got some information from engineering for the AW15R4 and AW17R5 Non- Gsync systems:

There are 2 video cards in the computer, Nvidia and Intel. If you press Fn + F7 it should pull two different graphic modes, Performance (uses only Nvidia) and Power Saving (Intel and Nvidia enabled, Intel by default, Nvidia for 3D and demanding apps). The Power Saving basically uses Optimus.
*For the change to take effect you have to restart the system after FN + F7*

My previous statement is still true:

The design of the new 15 R4 makes it so that the LCD/Screen is controlled directly by the nVidia card. The Intel card controls only the USB C port. This means that if you use this port for video, it will throughput the signal from the Intel UHD card. Otherwise, the card cannot be enabled manually or via Optimus unless there's an option to right-click an app and selecting which Graphics Processor to use.

Because with Power Saving you do not select which apps go with Intel UHD because all by default go there except 3D or demanding apps, but from the NVidia control panel you can select which ones will open with Nvidia. USB-C is controlled by Intel UHD. The Nvidia will be responsible for giving video to the LCD panel and to whatever is connected by HDMi or mini DP, but it does not mean that the applications are not rendered by the Intel in Power Saving.

For the FN+F7 to work, you need to make sure of the following:

- The On Screen Display (OSD) driver needs to be installed.

- Enter the BIOS and check that the Integrated Graphics and Discrete Graphics are both detected.

@Alienware-Eimy

Hi I just signed up to say that this doesn't work.

I have reinstalled Alienware OSD. Both GPU's are detected in BIOS.

Fn+F7 does nothing.

For the record, nothing Alienware related ever comes up onscreen when I use  any of the media keys. The default windows animations do show the functions working though (eg. volume bar pops up if I press Fn+F5). I even tried pressing Fn+F7 once, then rebooting but nothing changes.

Is there any other way to access this alleged "Power Saving" mode?

Same here. I even monitored the Intel graphics to see if it was being utilized. It stayed at 0% the whole time. There must be some way to fix this.

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@justo316 wrote:

@_OCB

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When I say "works", I mean, technically you can get throughput into the Intel GPU, but the problem is, this is not Optimus. This is the built in Windows 10 graphics switching that was introduced in the 1803 update. While you can force apps to use the Intel GPU, your Nvidia card is still ALWAYS ON and drinking power. Plus, it's just not feasible to go add every single app and system service into the list of apps being forced to use the Intel GPU.

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I'm still on Windows 10 1709 so I'll have to upgrade to try this. I'll report back when I get a chance.

This graphics switching feature doesn't seem to have much practical application though, unless I'm missing something. Is it possible that you still save some power compared to the Nvidia GPU? I've noticed that card uses a lot of power just for something like video decoding. Even at 20% use, its using the battery pretty quickly and the card heats up to around 50C. The Intel GPU would probably be more efficient in those cases. So maybe you could save some power by keeping the NVidia card close to 0%.

@_OCB

Yeah it's pretty useless. Your Nvidia card will still be running. You'll also see lots of small processes using it from time to time. It'd be impossible to try manually allocate every single process on your computer to use the Intel GPU.

I dunno why Microsoft didn't provide an option to set which card to be considered default. It would make it a lot easier if we could make the Intel GPU the default, then specify what specific programs to run with the Nvidia GPU. Though as a test, you can try disabling the Nvidia GPU in Device Manager. I tried it for a little while but haven't done extensive testing. This would effectively stop Windows from using the Nvidia GPU completely but it will still be powered. I remember having a quick look at my estimated battery life and didn't see any significant change, but like I said, I haven't tested it properly (I will probably give it a go over the weekend. EDIT: Don't bother, it runs like **bleep** and you can't change screen brightness).

At the end of the day, knocking your On-Battery CPU maximum to 99% (or less) in your power profile is probably more useful for conserving battery.

Ok so I gave it a try after upgrading to build 1803. Right now, Firefox and a few other apps are using the Intel UHD 630. Adding the different apps in Settings->System->Display->Graphics Settings worked. Task manager shows that UHD 630 is handling 3D. And when I open up YouTube, its also handling the decoding. The Nvidia card is at around 2% while Intel GPU shows around 40%.

The only problem is that some apps refuse to use Intel graphics. Like you can't set the Windows 10 Windows Manager to use it because it only uses the system default. This means it's pretty much impossible to get the same effect as Optimus. But it's better than nothing at least. The other advantage is that the main NVidia GPU will have less stress over time. This can potentially mean it will last longer, if you ignore other factors anyway.

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@justo316 wrote:

@_OCB

 

 

I dunno why Microsoft didn't provide an option to set which card to be considered default. It would make it a lot easier if we could make the Intel GPU the default, then specify what specific programs to run with the Nvidia GPU. Though as a test, you can try disabling the Nvidia GPU in Device Manager. I tried it for a little while but haven't done extensive testing. This would effectively stop Windows from using the Nvidia GPU completely but it will still be powered. I remember having a quick look at my estimated battery life and didn't see any significant change, but like I said, I haven't tested it properly (I will probably give it a go over the weekend. EDIT: Don't bother, it runs like **bleep** and you can't change screen brightness).

 

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The problem with disabling the Nvidia card is that it doesn't actually disable it. It only forces Windows to use the generic Windows display drivers. Otherwise you wouldn't have any display output. I don't think there's any way to stop Windows from using it completely.

Anyway, I'll have to see if the new settings actually helps with battery life or not.

@_OCB

Did you try restarting the laptop after making the custom changes to each app before monitoring? I saw that apps need to be restarted in order for them to make the switch. Easy enough for a browser because you can just close and open it again. For other system processes, they don't get a chance to restart so can't switch. I dunno, might have something to do with it.

Yeah, I noticed disabling the dGPU force it to use a basic display driver. Was so painful haha.

Just watched another recent youtube video talking about the new Alienware laptops and claiming Optimus is working. Frustrating because we know it isn't and the youtuber is just assuming it is without having tried it themselves. Really wish this information was made clearer by Dell.

I tried restarting it like you said and it worked. Very helpful thanks :BigSmile: The iGPU is rendering almost everything now. But it's definitely using the GPU frame buffer, which is the opposite of what you would see with Optimus.

It was a bit of a pain to configure because Windows 10 is a bodged together mess. You need to add 5 processes. There include 4 different processes from Windows\System32. These are dwm.exe (Desktop Windows Manager), csrss.exe (Client Server Runtime Process), ApplicationFrameHost.exe (Windows Application Frame Host),  connhost.exe (Console Host). There is also the Windows Shell Experience Host (at Windows\SystemApps\ShellExperienceHost_cw5n1h2txyewy\ShellExperienceHost.exe). All of these are involved in managing Windows or UI features.

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@justo316 wrote:

@_OCB

Just watched another recent youtube video talking about the new Alienware laptops and claiming Optimus is working. Frustrating because we know it isn't and the youtuber is just assuming it is without having tried it themselves. Really wish this information was made clearer by Dell.

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I agree that is frustrating. I also saw a review where the reviewer claims the 15 R4 has an IR sensor for Tobii and Windows Hello. They even said that they tested it. :Huh?: Obviously they didn't actually test it and they were simply reading the info on the Dell site, which is now fixed to show the 15 R4 doesn't have those features. Either that, or they received a weird early review unit which had some of the features of the 15 R3. That's highly unlikely though.