Poor Renpy animation performance with laptop with nVidia GPU and on board video. How to use GPU?

[Smarmint]

I've noticed poor performance in some Renpy games. I have a laptop with a nVidia GPU as well as on-board intel UHD graphics. Looking at task manager / performance tab, I see that Renpy is using the on board intel graphics (GPU 0 in task manager), rather than the nVidia GPU (GPU 1).

Is there a way to force Renpy to use the nVidia GPU for Renpy games? I have tried various graphics options and each of the available renderers (Shift-G) in Renpy, and even used the Windows 10 graphics options to try to force Renpy in to performance mode to use the nVidia GPU, but it always uses GPU 0, which is the Intel on board video.

Is this a Renpy limitation, where it can't use a GPU when on-board video is detected? Anyone with a second nVidia GPU enabled laptop gotten Renpy games to use the nVidia GPU?

Thanks.

 

[Count Morado]

I've noticed poor performance in some Renpy games. I have a laptop with a nVidia GPU as well as on-board intel UHD graphics. Looking at task manager / performance tab, I see that Renpy is using the on board intel graphics (GPU 0 in task manager), rather than the nVidia GPU (GPU 1).

Is there a way to force Renpy to use the nVidia GPU for Renpy games? I have tried various graphics options and each of the available renderers (Shift-G) in Renpy, and even used the Windows 10 graphics options to try to force Renpy in to performance mode to use the nVidia GPU, but it always uses GPU 0, which is the Intel on board video.

Is this a Renpy limitation, where it can't use a GPU when on-board video is detected? Anyone with a second nVidia GPU enabled laptop gotten Renpy games to use the nVidia GPU?

Thanks.

This appears to be purposeful.

You must be registered to see the links

Have you tried?

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(yes, you would have to do this for each of the Ren'Py games you are wishing to apply this to)

 

[Smarmint]

This appears to be purposeful.

You must be registered to see the links

Have you tried?

You must be registered to see the links

(yes, you would have to do this for each of the Ren'Py games you are wishing to apply this to)

Thanks. I tried the technique from the Intel page, and it still uses integrated graphics.

I can live with it. It's just some animations and page transitions are strangely choppy. I can run GTA5 easily, so its not my PC.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Thanks. I tried the technique from the Intel page, and it still uses integrated graphics.

As implied by PyTom on the page linked by Count Morado, this is a question of user choice, nor of Ren'Py choice. Therefore it's something (I don't know why for sure) on your OS configuration that make Ren'Py believe that it should use GPU 0.

This being said, most users don't have this kind of problem because they don't have a monitor plugged to their embedded GPU. Therefore their OS don't even consider it as a possible choice.

 

[Meaning Less]

If you have a notebook try disabling your integrated graphics, this helps avoiding these types of conflicts and in general there is little to no reason to ever use integrated graphics anyways.

 

[Smarmint]

Thanks for the suggestions. With a notebook that comes with an extra video card, it uses the integrated graphics for Windows and most windows apps that are not 3D intensive. This saves battery life, and excessive heat, since integrated graphics are good enough for most use other than 3D games and rendering. The PC usually switches to the nVidia graphics card, which is not visible to the user, for any 3D games, so that the user can get the much better graphics performance of the card.

However, since Renpy is mostly 2D, other than animations, it seems to be locked by Windows to the integrated graphics, so the animations still play on the integrated GPU rather than the external GPU. Just wondering of others with a similar gaming style laptop had any workaround, and if it makes any difference with performance. It seems that that is just the way it works for Renpy.

 

[FinderX]

Thanks for the suggestions. With a notebook that comes with an extra video card, it uses the integrated graphics for Windows and most windows apps that are not 3D intensive. This saves battery life, and excessive heat, since integrated graphics are good enough for most use other than 3D games and rendering. The PC usually switches to the nVidia graphics card, which is not visible to the user, for any 3D games, so that the user can get the much better graphics performance of the card.

However, since Renpy is mostly 2D, other than animations, it seems to be locked by Windows to the integrated graphics, so the animations still play on the integrated GPU rather than the external GPU. Just wondering of others with a similar gaming style laptop had any workaround, and if it makes any difference with performance. It seems that that is just the way it works for Renpy.

Hi, try this workaround.
Download the latest renpy SDK from github and run this command (i use linux but you can adapt if you use windows):

/path/to/renpy-8.1.3.X/renpy.sh /path/to/game-with-problems

I had resolved my video performance this way, maybe this can help you out.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Hi, try this workaround.

Please reader, do not try that workaround if, like him, you have no clue about what you are doing, this for the reasons explained here.