My awesome new lappy (Sony Vaio Z) comes with two video cards - one for battery life (4500 X integrated something) and one for gaming (330 M). I'd basically like to be able to configure programs to utilize different graphics settings depending on which one I'm using without having to waste five minutes every time switching them (Apparently, with some optimization and all, the integrated graphics can run WoW at a solid 25 FPS). I'd like to do this for WoW, SCII, and any games I've come across - maybe something that makes the game think that it's a different computer depending on the GPU used? Maybe a WoW addon that does this? Something else? Thanks in advance.

Oh, and if the human eye can perceive only 24.something frames per second, why do people bother running it at above that FPS? Seems like a waste of energy.

Because the human eye can perceive up to 60-70 Hz. The 24Hz are for TVs which use interlaced scanning to effectively double the frame rate to 48Hz. And you are a good bit away from TVs. If you move close to your TV you probably can see it flicker slightly.

I'm not sure how it works with your laptop, but in my desktop I have a GeForce and an onboard chip installed and I have to restart my computer and change the BIOS settings to switch between the 2. I'm fairly certain that's the best you can get because Windows doesn't support two graphics adapters at the same time, or hot swapping, for that matter.

No, my laptop does it fine. I just flip a switch, it checks for programs I should close (Like VLC or WoW, leaves everything else on), the screen might flicker for a moment and I can continue. Without any graphics-intensive programs running, there isn't even a flicker.

I actually thought that the 25 FPS on my WoW looked pretty damn smooth. Are you SURE I can see 60 FPS? <_<.

Then your laptop is apparently out of my sphere of knowledge.

Well tft monitors have a steady picture, while TVs and CRTs build up the picture line by line which results in the whole picture flickering which is easily noticeable up to 50Hz regardless of what is displayed (except dark pictures). When my computer switches from 75 Hz to 60Hz when I start a game I still immediately notice it, while others already see a steady picture at 60Hz.
But when you play WoW on a TFT the picture doesn't change much from one frame to the next, so the eye/brain can easily interpolate so you just see smooth movement. If you want to test it try to quickly spin your character around. You should see the objects "jumping" a few cm each frame. Then do the same with your better graphics card and once you hit around 60Hz the jumping should become negligible. This is of course different for every person. Some just have "quicker vision" than others. But by playing around a bit you should be able to tell the difference between 20 Hz and 60 Hz.

I can tell the difference between 24 fps and 40 fps. I can't tell the difference between 40 fps and 80 fps, unless it's on a CRT.

The programs don't decide what graphics card to use, the drivers/software decides when it needs to be done. I have no experience with multi-gpu solutions, so you should probably check with sony to see if you can customize your 3d settings somehow. I know my ATi card has support for overclocking and 3d settings in a game profile.

I don't think it's possible to program your computer so that it runs certain programs on one GPU and other programs on another GPU. It's a hardware change and for any kind of hardware change you'd have to make some changes in the BIOS, which can't really be done like if you were flicking the switch to turn your lights on. I'd say it's much like when on old computers we had to restart them just to change to mouse instead of a plug-and-play mouse we have today.

I do have to ask if you know anything more on how your switch GPU's by flicking a switch actually works? If you say it takes about 5 minutes chances are that the PC changes the BIOS settings by itself and then reboots itself from there. It's like doing it manual but with a switch, I doubt that your OS actually stays on the entire time. I'd say it's not possible to program it for specific programs to use, but I would like to learn more about it,

It's literally flipping the switch and continuing whatever I'm doing. It takes a second. If I have graphic-intensive applications open, it will ask me to close them before continuing. According to this article, Sony basically modded NVIDIA's Optimus technology, which, according to Wikipedia: "Nvidia Optimus is an optimization technology created by Nvidia to save battery life by automatically switching the power of the graphics processing unit (GPU) off when it is not needed and switching it on when again needed. The technology mainly targets notebooks and other mobile PC's.[1] When the GPU power is off the driver redirects graphics commands to the integrated graphics chip (e.g. Intel GMA).". I have the "Speed" (330M GPU), "Stamina" (Intel GMA) and autochoose setting.

I'm not trying to run certain programs on one GPU and others on another. I'm trying to save graphics settings on different applications to specific GPU's. For example, if I have it set to Speed, or the 330M GPU, it means that it's plugged in and I don't care about battery life, so when I would start up WoW it would automatically set the graphics to max (well, close). However, if I have it set to Stamina, or Intel GMA, it means I need to conserve battery life, so I'll want WoW to load with low graphics settings. I think it's unlikely that there's something that allows this because few laptops have this thing, but I'm still hoping.

Much better now. I don't think I've ever seen or heard a program that does what you want, but I can easily see that it's possible. I'm going to assume that the GPU change could be viewed as the different types of power consumption settings my Sony Vaio (2009) has. Basically it has 3 default settings being "Power Saver", "Balanced" and "High Performance". We can easily assume that the same could apply to your GPU settings. The program would have to determine whether it is running on low or high settings. The second step would be to access your saved settings on WoW (remember that everything like mod-settings, display, audio and all that stuff is saved on your computer) and modify them according to preset settings which you already chose.

I don't see it being a difficult program to create for someone who has some experience. I don't even think it even has to determine whether or not your GPU is in a "high or low state", it could just have you push a button for low settings and one for high settings.

Hrrm. Put that way, it DOES seem rather simple. Now, to see if it exists, because I can't program like that for my life. <_<

What you want is game profiles. There are various graphics cards tools around with game profiles (drivers themselves often have settings for it), but I'm not sure if there are any that can store 2 profiles for each game, and switch wholesale between all settings for all games.

If you're talking about settings within the games themselves, then you're going to have to alter each game manually, or come up with an automated way to do it that will be specific to each particular game.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/491929-changing-graphics-vaio-z.html#post6355395

That's the most useful response; however, I don't know how I'd go about implementing it. Can anyone explain how to do that in more detail?

Basically you just copy that script into a batch file [name].bat and replace the 2 comment lines with the detection which writes either NVIDIA or "something else" into the variable %GFX%.

Judging from the code I'd say you have to place it in the config directory and run it from there (batch files can be executed by double clicking). I don't own WoW, so it's hard for me to tell.

Now all you have to do is google for a small program / tool that catches your GFX and outputs it in a variable.