MacBook Pros with NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M graphics get (unofficial) discrete switching utility
By Chris Ziegler 
posted May 8th 2010 12:16PM
posted May 8th 2010 12:16PM
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
posted May 8th 2010 12:16PM
A look back on popular stories from today in a specific year.
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
All that battery power gained by unremovable batteries, lost as easily by inefficient software. Fail Apple
Nice that someone decided to help them out :P
If you have to code your own graphics card switching program so your laptop doesn't cut it's battery life in half to update twitter...they blew it
@tekdemon
Enough with "they blew it" meme already...
@Vuke
If you have to say enough with it...you blew it.
@mariocdl If your twitter client is poorly written enough to be activating it, then I'd say Tweetie blew it, not Apple. The only programs that activate it on my system are Rosetta-based - of which there are very few - and programs that actually need it, like HD video playback and 3D games. Heck, not even Photoshop Elements activates it - since Elements has never been updated to be GPU accelerated, this makes sense.
I like not having to think about my graphics mode, and just use my computer. I do "trust but verify" with gfxCardStatus, but so far Mac OS X has proven fine at managing it, despite the masses of people (who haven't actually used one) bleating to the contrary.
@Sogeking
Yes, because the masses on the internet are never wrong, and never spout opinions on things they have absolutely no knowledge of or experience with.
Over here in reality (you know, typing on one right now) it works fine, and activates only when needed. False positives are minimal, and the fact that Tweetie is one doesn't mean the system is bad, it means the Tweetie devs need to go back and fix their own code.
@diamondsw
If you have to justify Apple, you're blowing it.
Jobs that is.
@mariocdl If you have to rewrite your code just for Apple stuff that already cost 2x more then comparable products and these sites work fine for the other competitors there is something wrong going on here, and then for people to say that Tweetie should fix their site for Apple says that their is something really going wrong.
@mariocdl
don't worry. it's Apple, and there's an App for that.
@TheOne Umm, Tweetie is an app. Twitter is a website.
@mariocdl
apple isnt too good anyway. only hipsters, punks, socially awkward people and snitches use a mac... apple = yawn** im tired
microsoft ftw
@Sogeking
It might just be me but I don't want to blow jobs!
@Vuke
If you complain about the "they blew it" meme, you blew it.
@diamondsw
its not just tweetie though, the entire thing is bugged, something like playing a quicktime movie trailer (i know, why would you do this?) causes it to switch, and it stays switched until you start safari back up
its just been poorly implemented, VERY poorly implemented.
@weeandystheman well how about 3? *rimshot*
@tekdemon My friend bought the core i-5 15 inch macbook, everything is well except for the battery (ironically) Hopefully Apple can shed a light over this one. http://j.mp/core-i5-i7-macbooks-all-size
Wish i had a macbook pro to try it out
@Original Nosebleed
What do you want to try out? Flip a switch?
Yeah, I'm sure that it's a real thrill to watch the power consumption go up and down. ;-)
Should of been there day one. I think many people will be thankful for this guy :)
@Sonnyjimba
Should HAVE been there day one. Sorry, as someone who's OCD about spelling/grammar that's one of my largest pet peeves.
@John H
your dad shoulda pulled out
@John H
Should HAVE been there _ON_ day one. Sorry, as someone WHO IS OCD about spelling/grammar, {comma} that's one of my largest pet peeves.
There, fixed it for you.
@John H I was typing from my iPod and I was in a rush so don't hurt me xD
Now if someone would help Apple out by showing them how to drill holes in the bottom panels of their notebook computers so those fans could actually get some fresh(er) air, then I'd consider a larger, hotter model.
@Leindurstit
Although the original 2006 MacBook Pro ran like a furnace (mine would start shutting down wireless and throttling the GPU to reduce heat when gaming - not fun), I've yet to have my 2010 MBP run more than warm, even when gaming for hours at max settings. Thermal design has advanced quite a bit, no holes needed.
@Leindurstit you my friend are an idiot. The fans are indeed sucking in fresh air and are quite different from what is being used on most notebooks. They do cost quite a bit more as well but that's another story. Plus the fact that you have no holes on the bottom means that you can indeed put the notebook on the bed and not worry too much about it. But then again why would anyone care about this right?
@Leindurstit - You see all those little spaces around the keys? There's your fresh air.
Oh I don't know, maybe it's because my properly-vented Sony Vaio Z with the same components as the new 15" and 17" macbook pros in a 13" form factor manage to barely break 80C during simultaneous use of both the CPU and GPU? And that's all with one fan, and both components sharing the same copper fins. Did I also mention that this is with using it on my lap? You know, covering half of the vents?
@(Unverified)
right, because apple puts all their R&D and money into the fans?
i wouldnt be surprised if they are the same $.05 ones that all notebooks use... the ducting and heat transfer is just different.
my roomates 17" mbp idling in osx with firefox on google.com in the background gets so hot i cant leave it on my lap...
but maybe its apples plan of making everyone sterile.
@d889 What is his like an 07? Because my new 2010 Pro doesn't get hot and last for hours.
@Leindurstit - And your point is?
Yay community!
I'm coming close to buying one of these but the lack of a blu-ray drive really, really sucks. I mean come on, Apple, it's 2010!
@Gohawk09 but it's a bag of hurt!
@ipodman715 lol yeah but buying a beautiful high-res 17" screen to watch 480p video on seems kinda lame. looks like i'll have to carry around an external drive.
@Gohawk09
or quads, or quadros, or, or...
"Pro" my ass.
@Gohawk09
Now this criticism I'll readily agree with. "Bag of hurt" or no, that's Apple's problem to figure out, not saddling its users with an inability to play BluRay discs. Even if we added a drive third-party, there's no OS support.
It's a feature
@Peteman100
Actually, it is. And the vast majority of the time (99% or so in my experience - only Rosetta apps seem to always activate it needlessly), it works very, very well.
@diamondsw Depend on your usage. Maybe it's 99% if you are using your Mac like an iPad. If it's really 99%, no one would've wanted this utility and this guy just wasted his time to write it.
woo! just updated and it seems to work, I'm forcing Intel mode until *I* think I need Nvidia. btw the dev is a cool guy and quick to respond to questions.
@akf2000 Most people have no clue when the GPU is actually needed. That includes pretty much everyone here too. And Engadget themselves. And nearly every other tech blog. It's kind of embarrassing, actually.
For example, do you know why iTunes and Lightroom don't switch to discrete graphics like it "should"? It's because those apps... don't have GPU acceleration. Manually switching to discrete won't change the fact that those apps do everything on the CPU.
Similarly, Tweetie uses a *heavy* amount of CoreAnimation effects. Pretty much everything you click results in an animation that has to scale, rotate, blend, clip, etc. many large masked images together 30+ times per second. If anyone is concerned about battery life they should probably switch to a more efficient Twitter client first.
@imikedaman thanks, quality reply. I had no idea Tweetie utilised so much animation.
Didn't Jobs call Adobe lazy? The Ion GPU on my netbook automaricalliy switches for flash video. Makes you wonder who the lazy party really is...
@LordDarkGoose
Hope you keep that NVidia whitelist up to date then, and that they don't accidentally screw something up. Oh, wait...
http://www.wow.com/2010/03/05/recent-nvidia-drivers-causing-catastrophic-failures/
@diamondsw uh, you do realize those drivers have been updated and the problem has been fixed, correct? Although I don't think too many people are going to be running WOW and other graphically intensive stuff on an ION based system.
Just pray that Apple doesn't start banning Mac software. They might feel that this has "redundant" functionality.
I'm just waiting for the day that people have to jailbreak their Macs.
@Matt da Brat
Nice bit of trollish FUD there. Really, you don't have anything better to do?
@diamondsw Since when is speaking my mind FUD?
I have the right to indirectly insult a company for stifling innovation via censorship.
@Matt da Brat
So far the only thing they've censored is porn. The rest of what they do isn't called censorship.