» Wed May 16, 2012 11:37 am Nevertheless, I decided to plug it into my 42" TV and give it a whirl. To my surprise, it re-autodetected my performance to Ultra-High. I decided to try it out and it was playable! (I actually prefer a tweaked version of medium, though.)
It turns out that for some reason, the Skyrim launcher will not recognize the Nvidia 555m graphics accelerator, and it will start the game using the "Intel HD Family Graphics" - which I guess means it relies on the CPU rather than the GPU. (I'm not a huge techie, sorry.)
For some reason, when I plug my laptop into my TV (with an HDMI cable), the Skyrim launcher *does* recognize and select the "555m graphics accelerator" and runs the game using it. I have no idea why it doesn't recognize the GPU without the HDMI connection...
I did a little googling and found this video that shows how you can start games and applications using your GPU:
http://blogs.nvidia.com/2010/07/take-a-look-new-optimus-interface/
Basically, in Windows Explorer, you need to right-click TESV.exe (or a shortcut to that .exe) and then select "Run with graphics processor > High-performance Nvidia graphics processor".
You might need to make sure your drivers are up to date. The video linked above explains how to easily update them, if you don't know how.
The game runs at least 10x faster using the GPU, not surprisingly. Hopefully this helps some of you.
EDIT:
A better solution is found on this page:
http://segmentnext.com/2011/11/11/skyrim-crashes-freezes-sound-keys-errors-fps-lag-textures-and-fixes/
#9 will show how to enable the launcher to detect your High performance card.
The solution I described above will not allow you to get your Steam Achievements, if that's important to you.
