When i installed skyrim it picked the Intel HD graphics family one.

I looked in device manager and theres the NVIDIA GeForce GT 555M but for some reason skyrim wont let me pick that as the one to use from the drop down box.

So i was just wondering how i go about changing it so it picks the NVIDIA one for all my games to use.

Probably a bug with Optimus, disable Optimus in your BIOS until there is a fix (note: apparently not all laptops have a way to disable Optimus)

Other possible solution: Tell Nvidia to use the Nvidia card as your preferred card for skyrim: http://superuser.com/questions/282734/how-to-disable-nvidia-optimus-on-a-dell-xps-15

Thanks for the help i did some off the things from the link didnt work though.

I dont know how to disable optimus.

Go to the BIOS>Display>Graphics card > discrete graphics card (it will give you the option of discrete, integrated, or optimus)

*Some of that isn't verbatim, that's just from memory. This is for my Lenovo W520, it may or may not be a bit different from whatever you have. Alternatively you could try updating the graphics drivers from Nvidia's website, optimus has been getting better at detecting various applications each update.

You need to do the one that there is a picture of, but instead of where it says Display Window Manager you want to choose Skyrim, then obviously choose your Nvidia card as the preferred card. You may also have to choose Steam and set it to prefer your nvidia card, though i don't know if that is indeed the case or not. Also as sgt deacon said, try updating your driver

I updated my drivers and that still didnt work. I did the thing in the picture and that didnt work either.

Going to try that BIOS thing see if i can get that to work.

Just done the BIOS but couldnt find a way to disable it.

Has anyone else got any suggestions?

There's a handy youtube video that shows you how to work the Optimus options for choosing what graphics device will run Skyrim. Just double-click the video to go full screen, and there's also text to help you understand what that person is doing. Might be helpful to you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8uKuKbmcZk