Overwatch not accessing dGPU when Displaylink Hub plugged in
 

Hey Guys,

Hope you're well! I recently purchased a Surface Book 2 15 inch, which has an Intel HD 620 plus an Nvidia 1060 graphics card. To drive my monitors and setup at home, I also purchased a Dell D6000 Universal Dock.

When I'm running the Book by itself, everything works beautifully. Overwatch is one of the main games I play when I'm not working, and runs extremely well.

However, when I plug in the Hub, frame rates drop down to 5fps. What appears to be happening is it's trying to run Overwatch off the Intel HD 620 instead of the Nvidia 1060 card (I'm using device manager to monitor which card's in use).

I've used NVidia's control panel to set both Overwatch Launcher and the game itself to use the Nvidia card, to no effect.

Heroes of the Storm, another Blizzard title, correctly uses the NVidia GPU.

I've also played another graphics heavy game, Wolfenstein 2, and observed the NVidia card correctly being used to run this game.

I attempted to disable the 620, however the Surface appears dependent on it even when docked with the base unit. I wasn't able to test whether it works properly.

Additionally, I've noticed when watching video, it'll often show fragmented exactly halfway down the screen when the image changes quickly. I'm using 60HZ monitor and happens regardless of 30fps or 60fps Twitch streaming. When I boost the download stream to 1080p, it also lags every few seconds, despite having a full buffer, the video displays without the lagat 720p60.

Thankyou in advance for your assistance.

Warmest regards,

Andrew

Any ideas or suggestions? Would really like to be able to use my large screen to play Overwatch on.

I have a Toshiba Dynadock with DisplayLink outputs that I was trying to use as a regular USB hub. I have a 1060 gaming laptop, and I drive an external monitor from the laptop's MiniDP port. Without the hub I can play Overwatch just fine at 144+ fps, but when I connect the Dynadock my graphics performance is suddenly severely limited (~9 fps on High, ~40 fps on lowest possible settings). The best way that I could solve it was to go to Device Manager -> Display adapters and uninstall the TOSHIBA Video Dock (whatever you have will be different). However, this is only a temporary fix as the driver is reinstalled whenever the computer is turned on again.

Hi TheWarriorPoet,

While DisplayLink technology is targeted primarily to productivity and video applications, it is suitable for the casual gamer. However, DisplayLink will always prefer the integrated Intel GPU to do its compute functions if available. If you're a looking a premium gaming experience, you might want to go another route.

Can you confirm if you are running the game on the Integrated laptop screen or on one driven by DisplayLink? And also is it run in Full screen mode?

Please follow the third link in my signature and reply with Windows Support Log Files (.zip). These files will allow me to analyse your issue.

Kind regards,

James i'm having a similar issue. I cannot get any program or anything to use the nvidia GPU when using display link.

You said that Displaylink prefers to run on the intel CPU. Nvidia driver allows one to select which applications run on either the Intel GPU or the Nvidia.

Is there a way to get displaylink to work with the Nvidia settings or make it always on the Nvidia GPU.

Thanks,

-Rick

Resolved
 

I was able to resolve my issue by upgrading to the latest version of Windows 10. After looking checking GPU load.

I found that task manager now supports showing GPU% per application. Microsoft added this just recently. I was running 1703 and the latest is now 1803. To check your version hit Windows + I to open up Windows Settings. Then go into System, then about. Version should be there under Windows Specifications.

We have an upgrade server that controls updates, but I was able to bypass that and upgrade to the latest with microsofts update tool found here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/soft...load/windows10

The update takes a while. After the update I loaded up blender and illustrator and task manager showed them both running on GPU 1 which is the Nvidia. I also noticed that the nvidia Display Icon now shows activity on the card which it did not do before.

Hello,

The GPU selection is from the OS kernel mode driver. Since Windows 10 Anniversary Update, DisplayLink doesn't have a kernel mode driver.
There isn't any application which can change this, whatever the GPU utility claims. Once the OS has booted, it's too late to do the change. Even the new switch in the latest OS cannot change that. This is the case with any indirect display, not specific to DisplayLink.

There is a feature request with Microsoft to use the best GPU instead of using the POST GPU, which is almost always the Intel graphics, or at least allow us to suggest GPU affinity.
https://support.displaylink.com/foru...tions/15869604
It wouldn't be appropriate for us to comment on someone else feature delivery date though.

The only solution today is to switch off the low end GPU completely, provided your platform allows that, so the POST graphics card is the high end one.

You reporting this as being an issue for you via the Windows 10 Feedback Hub is the way to make sure it is prioritised earlier rather than later.

Kind regards,
Alban

Hello,

There no need to uninstall this for the issue reported on the thread.
Unplugging would be enough.

The design/bug are currently being addressed by some OS changes currently targeted for the next version of Windows 10.

Regards,
Alban

An FYI for people investigating this problem.

I have an older laptop Dell Inspiron 15 7000 with Intel HD Graphics 4400 and Nvidia GeForce GT 750M switchable graphics, and a Dell D3000 DisplayLink dock.

With the latest Windows 10 1903 update the switchable graphics works fine only when no dock is attached.

This seems to contradict the suggestion that Windows 10 cannot be switch away from the POST GPU. FYI, I confirmed the switchable graphics were actually enabled by running Redway3D examples which only run accelerated from the Nvidia GPU.

I also found that certain OpenGL applications would only run from one or the other GPU so it was pretty easy to determine which GPU was enabled.

However, as soon as I plug in the D3000 Dock applications will no longer launch automatically or manually using the discrete graphics card. With the dock attached only Intel integrated graphics are functioning.

Hello Cpcfreak,

You're correct that some changes were made for switchable graphics in Windows 10 v1903 (19H1).
Unfortunately, these changes also break the docking use cases pretty badly, as you indicated.
Windows 10 20H1 Insiders build 18932 and newer is fixing that.

With the Windows 10 you have, marking the laptop display as main display before launching the application will allow the application to start properly, even when docked.
We have asked for the fix, tested in Windows 10 20H1 to be distributed to Windows 10 v1903 via the monthly patches.

If it is approved, we will then be able to use the dGPU for gaming (graphics computation), and still use the iGPU for our encoding (the POST GPU) on DL-6xxxx products, which would bring the best Windows 10 performance than until today as it would be leveraging both GPUs.
The encoder used for the Dell D3000 is on CPU though, so you'd have the game computing on dGPU and encoding on CPU. You will still see an uptick in performance as until Windows 10 v1809 (RS5), Windows would have made the game use the iGPU when docked, regardless of any other settings you tweak because it tends to be the POST card.

Kind regards,
Alban

Good evening,

I am pleased to announce Microsoft approved the multi-GPU machines fix for deployment to Windows 10 v1903 (19H1).
It is currently tracking to be an optional update starting rolling out on Tuesday 27th August (overall OS patch, not just that) and then pushed to all machines as part of the Tuesday 10th September cumulative patch and newer.

Optional updates are manually installed by going to Settings > Updates & Security > Windows Update, and clicking on "Check for updates".
There is no change to the DisplayLink driver you are currently using.

Kind regards,
Alban

Hello! I was very happy when I read the last posts in this thread. So I waited excited for the 27th August. But no optional update was rolled out by MS. Are there some news about it?

Hello,
Yes, they delayed the Tuesday update to Friday. I announced that on another thread.
Regards,
Alban

Oh my god...there is hope! Do you think this fix might resolve my issues? You're the first person I've found online that seems to know what they're talking about so I'd appreciate your input.

I had zero issues with my setup until two weeks when Windows finally forced me to update. I don't do gaming but I create a lot of digital media for my job and use the standard applications (Premiere Pro, After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.) I've reinstalled every app that seems to be affected, reinstalled windows, updated drivers, rolled back drivers, pulled error logs, etc.

I can barely do my work because it's so erratic and the problems with my GPU(s) and OpenGL(according to the error messages) seem to continue even when I'm not connected to my Targus docking station (dual 4k--don't have the model number available atm). I absolutely need dual monitors to do my work. Editing video on a 1920x1080 screen is a nightmare haha

At least a few times a day, usually when something goes haywire in Photoshop or After Effects, my docking station craps out and I have to unplug it from my computer, power it off, power it on, and plug it back in. Both my laptop and docking station are less than a year old.

I have the integrated Intel 630 graphics and a GeForce 1060 in my ASUS ROG laptop.

I can barely use Photoshop or After Effects, which I depend on the most. I've updated everything I could think of, even Adobe Camera Raw.

I found workarounds for the most part but even these seem to stop working after a day or two.
After Effects barely runs and like Photoshop, it seems to start crapping out as soon as I do any semi-complex action.

I can only get certain apps to run by right clicking and telling it to use my integrated GPU.

Thank you.
Can you try to keep the laptop lid open, make sure the laptop display is main display (shows the notification and icons of the system tray)?
Please do that before starting any application using the better GPU. The issue is when the application starts, it can't list displays properly.
If you get it working like that, then I'm confident it's the same thing.

Lid open is also advisable to prevent computer getting hot and then losing performance because everything gets throttled.

Kind regards,
Alban

Close my laptop lid while connected to my docking station? What kind of monster do you think I am?!?! :D I do always keep my lid open when plugged in and keep it on a pad with cooling fans. That screen is the perfect place for my Outlook window haha

I'll have to check when I'm back home to see if my laptop screen is identified as the main display. I'm able to work but barely. Last night, I was trying to touch up a raw photo in Photoshop and used the spot removal tool. My computer didn't like that and crashed both image editors I had open at the time. Sigh... Normally I'd be able to do this with zero problems.

ALL of my problems started after the windows update. I know this because I remember thinking "oh weird, the locked screen now blurs out" before logging in and when I went to open Photoshop and After Effects...the problems began.

Thank you again for this info. This is the first known issue I've found that seems remotely related to what i'm experiencing.

Hello,
Good habit on the lid :)
I haven't heard about impact once the application was started, so I can't say for sure.
I believe that before the update, the performance would not have been great because despite what the parameter screens were telling you, I would have expected Photoshop to rely on the iGPU, not the high end one.
Kind regards,
Alban

It's working now! But there seem to be still a small issue: The main display becomes number 1 by starting an application or game. It doesn't matter which display number it has by identifying it in the windows display settings. We will see if MS fixes this issue.

@AlbanRampon

I have another problem: I can't open the "nvidia display settings" when the internal display is deactivated. Message is "NVIDIA display settings are not available". But I still can use the dgpu on the external displays. Is this a dgpu drivers related issue, also a bug in Windows or in the display link drivers?

Hello,

Probably none of the options you listed.
If the only thing not working now is their app, then the issue is more likely to be the app...
The OS and drivers care about functionality and you report the system behaving correctly.
These apps should be non-essential for functionality (per Microsoft requirement) as the driver should be able to work without it.

What's most likely is that the app was conceived to report about directly connected displays and, wasn't conceived to have zero directly connected displays. Native support for DisplayLink USB indirect displays was introduced as standard in Windows 10 v1607.

Kind regards,
Alban

Sorry to dig up this old thread, but my question relates to the OP. I am running a similar setup as OP with a I5-7400 and iGPU along with a nVidia GTX 1060 3gb dGPU. I had to manually enable the iGPU in bios so they both run in tandem.

That being said, how do I confirm that encoding has been offloaded from the CPU onto the iGPU? When I look at task manager performance tab the iGPU appears dormant, no activity. However, the CPU used to peg at 100% while gaming and now it dips into the 70's and 80's once I activated the iGPU so I have a suspicion the iGPU is engaged. Is there another way to confirm?

Edit: Forgot to include that I'm running a Dell D6000 via USB-C on Windows 10 (whatever latest public version is) and dual monitors at 1080P.