

Physical signs also help decide whether a certain app is using the integrated or dedicated GPU. If the dedicated graphics card isn’t installed and your PC doesn’t use it, you won’t see it listed in the diagnostics tool. In the new window that pops up, go to the Display tab to see the information about your graphics card and its drivers. The easiest one is to open a Run box by pressing the Windows and R keys together. You can access this tool in different ways. You can use this tool to learn about your graphics card and how much of its resources are used. The DirectX Diagnostic Tool is a built-in Windows feature that helps identify and fix issues with audio and video. You can also use third-party performance monitoring apps and observe your CPU and GPU usage while playing games and see how these figures change. If the CPU appears before the GPU, your computer uses the integrated GPU instead of the GPU. In addition, the GPU should appear the first in the list of the Performance tab because it’s under a high load while you’re playing a game. If the values go up, you can be certain the computer is using your dedicated graphics card. Go to the Performance tab to see the usage specs for each graphics card.Ĭheck these performance figures while playing a game and see how the usage changes for your dedicated card. Right-click a space on the taskbar and click Task Manager. If observing the game frame rates doesn’t help you clearly understand your GPU usage, you can turn to the Task Manager.

Look for FPS Counter from the list of options and select the spot on the screen that’s more convenient for you to see the live counter. If you have an Nvidia graphics card, you should first ensure that you have the latest drivers.Īfter updating your drivers, open the overlay and go to Settings > HUD Layout. This way, you can have your FPS counters on overlay while playing a game. Minimize Metric Options and go to Select Metrics to enable FPS. Navigate to Performance > Metric Options > Slow Metrics. Go to Settings, select Relive and move the Toolbar Hotkey toggle. To access ADM Settings, right-click a space on your desktop and click AMD Radeon Software. However, if you have an AMD graphics card, you can find your in-game framerate via its settings. MSI Afterburner is another tool that can give you many insights regarding your in-game figures. If you play your games via Steam, you can use the Steam overlay to get different numbers about the game. You can observe the game’s framerates via different options. Observing these frame rates lets you decide if the game is running on the dedicated or integrated graphics card. You already know what frame rates your graphics cards can handle, and a dedicated graphics card can always handle higher frame rates. Knowing your in-game frame rates can help you decide which graphics card the computer is using. This information lets players tweak in-game settings or computer features to boost their performance. Modern video games allow you to see their frame rates while playing. You can check which graphics card the system is using via different methods. That’s typically not the case with desktop computers since the monitor will automatically connect to the dedicated graphic card once you set it up. Then, it switches to the dedicated GPU while you perform graphically intensive tasks, such as playing video games. The system uses your integrated graphics card when you perform normal computer tasks, such as word processing or web browsing. Most modern laptops have a switching mechanism that automatically assigns your integrated or dedicated graphics card to specific tasks. Signs Showing Your Graphics Card Is In Use Plus, you can force specific games or programs to use the dedicated GPU. If your computer isn’t using the dedicated GPU for intensive tasks, make sure the dedicated GPU is set as the default graphics card. You can use the overlay options in Nvidia and AMD graphics cards to check your frame rates and see if they go up when you play a game. Your computer is using your GPU if you experience high frame rates in your game and the GPU usage is high in the Task Manager.

Is My Computer Using My Graphics Card? (How To Check) You can easily check whether the system is using your GPU and force it to do so if it doesn’t. However, the system may fail to use the dGPU resources and switch to the iGPU for no apparent reason.Īs a result, you’ll experience performance and graphical problems while doing intensive tasks. A dedicated graphics card is an exciting feature that maximizes graphical performance, especially for playing games.
