nVidia Optimus

[lifeblood]

My wife has taken a position as a Research Assistant while working on her PhD. She will be doing Modeling and Simulation and her future coworkers have told her she needs a laptop that can do 3D gaming because some of the simulations they do are 3D (apparently the university provided computers the RA's use are junk). I was looking at a laptop with Optimus but I don't think it will work. If I understanding the technology correctly, the Optimus works in the drivers and only redirects the video of programs it recognises as 3D. Given that, if my wife is using some weird modeling or simulation program that's not recognised by the drivers, it won't work.

Is my understanding correct? Does anyone know if Optimus allows you to force ALL video through the separate GPU?

I was thinking of a Llano laptop but none of those meet her numerous other requirements (light weight, separate keypad, acceptable keyboard, not HP).

 

[Barfo]

You can choose a program's exe in nvidia control panel and force it to run on the GPU or integrated graphics, whichever you prefer.

It didn't work for me with Minecraft though, but I haven't had time to research the issue.