Is there a way I can force an application to use the GPU?

Question

I own a MacBook Pro 15in with retina display with integrated graphics from NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M. Currently I have my settings in the "Energy Saver" section of the System Preferences set for automatic graphics switching. I use an interior design application called Live Interior 3D Pro. This application uses a lot of 3D rendering that lags for a 2-3 seconds. I checked my activity monitor to see if the application was using the GPU, and it indicated it was not. I understand that I can uncheck the automatic graphics switching to fix the problem, but the problem is I hear it screws with the battery life. I do not want to switch off the automatic switching setting but do want this specific application to use the GPU instead of the built in Intel Iris Pro graphics thing. Is there a setting I can use to make just this application fire up the GPU when I open it? If not, do you know if switching off the automatic graphics switching setting messes with the battery at all? Also, does this mess with the performance of the machine overall since I have 16GB of RAM and only 2GB of GPU power or are those totally different and irrelevant? Thank you for your time and thank you in advanced for your help!!!!!!!!

Answer 1

jspatel1011,
your MacBook Pro’s discrete NVIDIA GPU is more powerful than its integrated Intel graphics; that power comes at the cost of increased energy consumption. There’s no setting to allow exceptions to the automatic graphics switching; you’ll have to determine whether that power vs. energy tradeoff is worth it when running Live Interior 3D Pro or not. If it is worth it, then disable the automatic graphics switching before you run Live Interior 3D Pro, and reënable it after you quit that app. (You might look into AppleScript to see if that disabling and reënabling can be automated.) If it’s not worth it, then you’ll have to live with the lagging while it does the 3D rendering.