--- BUG IS FIXED IN DX9 TEST PATCH ---

As discussed in this thread https://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=84843 LFS does not utilize the dedicated GPU in my Dell laptop, it uses the integrated Intel 4000 chipset instead.

The issue seems to be LFS specific, or at least from the 10 or so games I have tested on the laptop.

Within the options screen of LFS there is no button to select the Radeon GPU and using the AMD driver to force it has no effect unlike all the other games I tried.

I am using GPU-Z, a free software to monitor loads on the Intel and Radeon GPUs as the game is running and it's most definitely using the Intel and the mediocre performance suggests the same.

If anyone else has similar issues please post your details to the thread as it may help pinpoint the issue.

Thanks!

Same issue. It's a Samsung laptop, bought in 2013, model which does not exist on official site lol. Most similar other model has latest drivers for XP while i'm using win7 but are dated Oct 20, 2012 which at least does not seem so bad . My point is laptop manufacturer drives are a real mess. You can get lucky and everything works or not so much. I'm talking about Intel 4000 + AMD card combo, nVidia has much less problems of sort. Note that i'm accusing the driver quality not LFS itself for the issue. That is because game uses what driver provides. I don't think the game itself can't provide options what card to use.

My noob theory is since game is DirectX 8.1 (not sure) driver reacts by not bothering to turn on the AMD card when the Intel one has all the functions the game calls for. Later games made to work on never DirectX make AMD usage happen. This is consistent with my experience. Ideally, there would be an option to select which card gets used for what or even together in pair for even better performance, all provided by the drivers. Not even ideally, just common sense. This may vary between manufactures of course but it's not my point. Laptop i use has something similar but if it worked i would have not write all of this.
It gets weird: with intel+amd the Intel card will always gets reported as used by the game (which have that option), while the actual render might be done by the AMD as proved my GPU-Z. I've read about it and my conclusion is that while AMD does the render the Intel is in charge for displaying rendered fames to the screen. Yeah, go figure.

After many hours spent trying to find a way to update my drivers i gave up. LFS definitely is not the only game for which only Intel was used on my laptop, but it sure as hell is the only one which AMD should be used but it isn't . I get roughly 10% of the performance i would expect to get otherwise. Even so... ass kicking still very much happens

Just one final advice i just remembered. This is a long shot but... in one post one guy (troy) posted a .dll file which converts DX8 to DX9 on the fly or something, the funny part is that another guy who tried it got a massive FPS increase. I immediately thought that this new DX9 voodoo magic trick triggered the driver to activate the AMD card. Not sure though, other guy never mentioned his specs. Just need to find the post lol.
EDIT: found it: here it is! (put the "v0.0035" .dll file in the same folder with LFS.exe); check two posts above that one too, interesting stuff

Final final advice: the correct term is "Switchable Graphic" laptop. Google the problems about it if you haven't already. Maybe the guys at Dell are better than the ones in Samsung

Quote from Nilex :

Just need to find the post lol.

https://www.lfsforum.net/showt ... php?p=1827635#post1827635

I have a laptop with switchable graphics though its Intel+nVidia so no problems because switching is totally manually by user e.g. I press button or with provided software. Not sure how its done exactly in AMD, but I guess they tried to be little "intelligent" in switching modes. Maybe try googling about issue for your exact laptop model, there should be always way to override modes

As I say, the switchable graphics is working as intended on the other games I tried. No matter what settings I use for LFS it doesn't activate the Radeon GPU

As a side note, some other titles such as the Resident Evil 6 benchmark tool display the GPU name as Intel 4000 but it is most definitely using the Radeon from monitoring GPU load and the apparently decent performance.

Glad it is sorted out! And that is my hope too

As expected, the move to DX9 with the latest test patch has fixed this issue and LFS now correctly utilizes the discreet GPU in my HP laptop Thanks Scawen!