i5-1240p (Iris GPU)
RTX 3050
16GB RAM
Problem: Recent games (mostly DX12) like Elden Ring or Fifa 23 don't run on discrete graphics (RTX 3050 4GB) and its 3D usage is stuck to 0%, causing such games to run poorly on the laptop 144hz screen. Older games like Sekiro, NBA 2k20 and RDR2 (Vulkan) and even FurMark benchmark work fine and use 100% of the RTX GPU. NO setting changes this behavior!
What I tried:
- Clean install Windows 11 from USB drive
- Installed drivers & GPUs (Intel & Nvidia) drivers provided by Acer Support Page
- DDU + installed GPUs (Intel & Nvidia) drivers from Intel & Nvidia directly
- Set laptop power mode from Balanced to High Performance
- Nvidia Control Panel → 3D Settings → Preferred Graphical Processor: RTX 3050; Power management mode: High performance. Then 3D settings → Program Settings, Elden Ring.exe, Prefer RTX 3050.
- Nvidia Control Panel → PhysX settings → RTX 3050
- Windows 11 Settings → System → Display → Graphics: Added Elden Ring.exe (or fifa, etc.), select High Performance (RTX 3050) for this game.
- Disabling Iris GPU in device manager causes the games to stutter like crazy, it's not a solution.
- Updated BIOS to latest 1.08 and Windows 11 is fully updated.
I'm verse on PCs and my understanding is that these mid range laptops don't have a MUX switch to selected which GPU is being used by the laptop screen, higher ends laptops do have this MUX chip, as this support page suggests. So Laptops like mine have the screen connected to Iris GPU and rely on Windows 11, Firmware and Nvidia Control panel to """smartly""" detect which GPU to use, but that clearly doesn't work. It's not likely to be an hardware problem because the RTX GPU works perfectly fine on some older titles, but at this point it could as well be….
I'm kind of mad to Acer, don't you test these PCs before selling them!? what's the point in having a 144hz screen if the notebook is not being able to use its nvidia graphic card?
