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I have a Dell Inspiron gaming laptop that has the following specs:

CPU: intel i5-6300hq 4 cores 4 threads
GPU: Nvidia GTX 960m
ram: ddr3 8gb 1600mhz
hard drive: SATA SSD 256gb

I recently learnt about the Nvidia Optimus bottleneck. Basically, the discrete GPU data, instead of going directly to the display, it goes through the integrated GPU first, thus the bottleneck.

I was told that connecting an external monitor to the laptop and choosing "2nd screen only" circumvents Optimus if the HDMI port is directly connected to the discrete GPU.

I connected an external monitor but did not get any fps boost or fps stability. The fps dropped to as low as 13 just like it usually does when using the laptop monitor with lowest game settings. As a result, I assume the HDMI port is connected to igpu.

Is there no way to avoid the Optimus bottleneck on my PC? Is upgrading my only option?

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  • The "optimus bottleneck" should be in copying frames rendered on the dGPU over to the iGPU for display, you should still be able to have framerates above 100fps over a PCIe link. If you have a game running at 13FPS then it is not optimus "bottlenecking", it is that the game is not rendering on the dGPU to begin with. You should be able to chose which GPU is used to render programs in either the Nvidia control panel or in the Windows Graphics Settings
    – Mokubai ♦
    Commented Apr 17, 2022 at 18:57
  • @Mokubai Nvidia GPU is chosen in the control panel. please note that the FPS fluctuates. it rises to 60, drops to 38, rises to 55 but sometimes goes down to 13. The game being Fortnite
    – machine_1
    Commented Apr 17, 2022 at 19:05
  • That is likely something to do with CPU load and the scene currently being rendered or loaded. Averaging somewhere around 40-60FPS appears to be normal for Fortnight on a GTX 960m and occasional drops is going to be normal: youtube.com/watch?v=W5GFmXqhhE0 If you want better framerates then you will have to buy a better laptop, the 960 is quite old now.
    – Mokubai ♦
    Commented Apr 17, 2022 at 19:19

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