Use "Advanced Optimus" IMPORTANT performance boost without reboot.
Hi,
TLDR: Open Nvidia control panel and select Nvidia GPU only to enable advanced optimus to switch between igpu (eco) and dgpu (standard) without having to reboot via "ultimate" mode - stupid and confusing naming conventions.
This then becomes a manual toggle. Eco for igpu, or standard for advanced optimus gpu only (Optimised then makes more sense for auto switching with power plugged in or not) .
After struggling for several days I have finally worked out how to use advanced optimus for the graphics.
For those that dont' know. You have 3 GPU modes. Eco - which is iGPU only, Ultimate, which is graphics card only, and standard, which is the graphics card powering the laptop, but routed through the iGPU to the screen.
This is meant to be a sort of efficiency feature, where the graphics card runs at low power for browsing and low power tasks, in conjunction with the iGPU. It however still uses some power, and you're better off just moving to eco mode.
There is also the confusing "optimised mode" which switches between eco on battery, and "optimus" when plugged in.
Optimus is what we talked about in standard mode, where the graphics card is on but low power, but ramps into a high power state when gaming.
However it still runs through the igpu, this is why if you change the color settings in amd control panel (or intel if on intel) those color profiles stay in place even when gaming through the graphics card.
HOWEVER, there is added latency and slowdown through this path between 5 to 20% depending on the game. This is where ultimate mode comes in, this is where the graphics card goes direct to the screen without the GPU for gaming. Unfortunately setting it to ultimate means a reboot, this is because the laptop has to switch over its "MUX switch" from one display device to the other.
But not so fast, some laptops have "advanced optimus" this is the ability to switch between the standard mode and ultimate mode without rebooting. Problem is the setting is hidden.
What you need to do is, go into nvidia control panel (which only will properly open when you are in ultimate mode, OR sometimes in standard mode depending if it is being glitchy).
Go to manage display mode. and pick "Nvidia GPU only", not Automatic.
What this does is it forces when in standard mode the graphics card to be the primary output mode. Now you can switch between Eco for iGPU and Standard for proper full power graphics card output, when you change the mode from eco to standard. If you leave it in Automatic, you will not use advanced optimus and will always have the crappy gpu -> igpu -> monitor passthrough always enabled.
Now you dont need to reboot to switch to full graphics card.