How to check which application is using DGPU?

This post is for checking whether your laptop is using the Integrated GPU or the Dedicated GPU at a given time.

Some Basic knowledge:

What basic components are used in processing?

1. CPU
2. Integrated GPU (or iGPU)
3. Dedicated GPU (or dGPU)

1. CPU

A CPU or a Central Processing Unit which runs all the time, as soon as you turn on the computer and stops only when you turn your computer off.

CPU is a hardware within a computer that carries out the instructions of a computer program by performing the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. But CPU mostly doesn't perform the graphics computations, what I meant is that they mostly don't perform graphics related rendering since graphics rendering mostly requires parallel processing which is usually performed on the GPU which has large amount of cores as compared to CPU which has very limited number of cores. 

2. iGPU

An integrated GPU(Graphics processing unit) or an iGPU comes built-in with the CPU which is required to perform the usual image related computation. An iGPU is a GPU but with very less computation power as compared to the dGPU, hence an iGPU requires very less electrical power as compared to dGPU.

It is used to power applications like Window's built-in games, media players etc.

Note: Nowadays a new range of Intel's iGPU are being launched in market which are powerful enough to play some high end games like Battlefield 3, Tomb Raider 5 etc. but of-course on low quality.

3. dGPU

A dedicated GPU or a dGPU is a GPU which is solely added to the machine only to meet the requirements of the user for high need of computation. It requires more amount of electrical power as compared to iGPU but it also provides the user with the higher amount of the computation power.

It is used to power applications like Adobe CS5, Battlefield 3, Crysis 3 on high-quality.

Nvidia Optimus technology v/s ATI Hybrid Graphics.

Overall both the technology by the GPU giants are one and the same. But let me tell you the basic things you need to know about them.

When you are performing some low-end computation task at that time, your computer switches to iGPU which can meet this requirement and since it also requires low power consumption, the battery of your laptop is conserved, since the dGPU is off it doesn't requires much power. But if you start performing a task which needs high computation power like gaming or working on 3D apps, then your computer turns on the dGPU providing you the required computation power.

Nvidia came up with this concept first under the brand name Optimus which was later followed by the ATI under Hybrid Graphics.

If you want to check whether your laptop is currently working on iGPU or dGPU then you can perform the following steps:

I am only showing the steps for Nvidia Optimus enabled laptops

Step 1: Right Click on desktop and select Nvidia Control Panel.

Nvidia Control Panel

 Step 2: Click on Desktop and select Display GPU Activity Icon in Notification Area.

Display GPU Activity Icon in Notification Area.

Step 3: Click on Display Activity Icon in Notification Area to check which application or display is using the DGPU

Activity Icon.