NVIDIA published a GeForce article that dives into how Advanced Optimus increases gaming performance, reduces system latency, optimizes battery life, and makes laptops shine with a G-SYNC variable refresh rate display. You can check out the full article here: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/news/rtx-laptops-advanced-optimus
As a refresher, Advanced Optimus automatically selects whether the GeForce GPU or integrated graphics is driving the internal display, and based on what application is running, switches as needed, delivering meaningful, measurable benefits that improve your experience.
NVIDIA Advanced Optimus is an evolution of NVIDIA Optimus, a legacy, game-changing feature. Before its invention, a laptop either ran via low-performance integrated graphics, or high-performance power-intensive GPUs. There was no middle ground, and most importantly, no way to dynamically switch which processor was driving the internal display. Instead, users had to reboot their laptop, and potentially change BIOS settings.
NVIDIA Optimus introduced a way to dynamically switch between the two graphics processors. The integrated graphics would always drive the display and profiles from our GeForce drivers told the system when a game or app would benefit from high-performance graphics and GPU acceleration, and the GeForce GPU would be tagged in to render the 3D game and pass the rendered frames to the integrated graphics to display. When the game or app was shut down, display duties went back to the integrated graphics, lengthening the laptop’s battery life.
NVIDIA Advanced Optimus improves upon the original by introducing a hardware-based dynamic display switch that allows GeForce GPUs to directly control the display, rather than routing via the IGP. Bypassing integrated graphics increases game performance, reduces system latency when gaming, and enables the use of G-SYNC variable refresh rate displays, improving users’ experiences.
Currently, there are over 50 GeForce RTX 30-Series laptop designs with NVIDIA Advanced Optimus available from our partners at Acer, Alienware, ASUS, Clevo, Dell, Gigabyte, HP, Lenovo, MSI, and Razer. Some standouts include: Lenovo Legion 5 Pro and Legion 7, Alienware x14, x15, and x17, Razer Blade 15 and Blade 17, and Acer Triton 500 SE. Laptops configurations can vary, consumers should please check with local laptop manufacturers about specific support for Advanced Optimus.
