1Password forces the use of NVIDIA GPU on new Macs

ctwise

Running 1Password forces the new Macs to switch to using the NVIDIA GPU. I can't see anything about the app that would require the higher-powered GPU so my guess is that some library or framework that's being used automatically triggers the switch. Hopefully you can find some other way to implement the functionality or you can raise the issue with Apple who can adjust the switch.



If you're not aware of how to test this, open System Profiler and click on Hardware -> Graphics/Displays. Whichever "video card" Intel HD Graphics or NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M has the Color LCD display connected is the active GPU. System Profiler doesn't dynamically update so you'll need to close and reopen it when testing changes.

riccto

I can confirm this on my MBP i7.



There is a little menubar app that can track which grahics card is in use, live...



[URL="http://codykrieger.com/gfxCardStatus/"]gfxstatus[/URL]



Quite useful to troubleshoot battery draining apps.

noelbernie

CoreAnimation maybe ?

mondoman

Yeah I can confirm this too on my new 15" MBP, kind of frustrating that apple doesn't allow you to force the intel graphics. gfxstatus is going to be a life saver to help me keep my battery running longer.

MartyS

Welcome to the forums, mondoman!



To test this, you can disable 1Password's use of CoreAnimation to see if that is the issue by running this command in Terminal



[CODE]defaults write ws.agile.1Password DisableCoreAnimation 1[/CODE]

To undo that preference, you can do



[CODE]defaults delete ws.agile.1Password DisableCoreAnimation[/CODE]



Please let us know what you find!

ctwise

Disabling Core Animation doesn't change anything, the Mac still switches GPUs when 1Password is loaded. My assumption is that the fact it's listed as a dependency is enough to force the change. If that assumption is correct then you'll have to load it dynamically to prevent the change from occurring.

Nik

Thank you for the feedback. We have reproduced the problem and are looking into it. As this affects other applications also, it is not yet clear to us whether this is something that needs to be resolved on the Apple side of things or on the application developer side of things. If we determine that we can eliminate this problem ourselves, then we will do that as quickly as possible.



We appreciate you've given us with this, and your patience.

cpoteet

I came here looking for this very issue. Any resolution?

MartyS

[quote name='cpoteet']I came here looking for this very issue. Any resolution?[/QUOTE]



This "feature" is brought on because we choose to include some graphical elements that Mac OS X knows can use the additional processing power of the other GPU. When it sees that at launch time it switches to the more capable processor it can find. 1Password is not in control of this switching and while we've looked to see if we can conditionalize it within our code, the mere fact that we *might* call the routines causes OS X to switch. There doesn't appear to be any way to truly resolve this from our code.



I use [URL="http://codykrieger.com/gfxCardStatus/"]gfxCardStatus[/URL], a tiny application that sits in the menu bar. You can use it to switch to only use the built-in graphics processor and 1Password seems to work just fine in that mode... although that's a personal observation, not an official statement of support.

cpoteet

[quote name='MartyS']This "feature" is brought on because we choose to include some graphical elements that Mac OS X knows can use the additional processing power of the other GPU. When it sees that at launch time it switches to the more capable processor it can find. 1Password is not in control of this switching and while we've looked to see if we can conditionalize it within our code, the mere fact that we *might* call the routines causes OS X to switch. There doesn't appear to be any way to truly resolve this from our code.



I use [URL="http://codykrieger.com/gfxCardStatus/"]gfxCardStatus[/URL], a tiny application that sits in the menu bar. You can use it to switch to only use the built-in graphics processor and 1Password seems to work just fine in that mode... although that's a personal observation, not an official statement of support.[/QUOTE]



Using gfxstatus it works just fine.

[Deleted User]

[quote name='cpoteet']Using gfxstatus it works just fine.[/QUOTE]



That's good to know, thanks for posting the info

jb510

Same issues 6 months later. I do understand this isn't a bug, as much as an unfortunate combination of events, but I've noticed the same behavior on my new 2011 MBP.



The good news is the with 1P closed none of the browser extensions seem to activate the dGPU.



The bad news (unrelated to 1P) is that it does seem that once an app does activate the dGPU (browser for example) it won't let go of it (closing tabs) and you have to close the entire app to get it to tuly let go.



Running gfxCardStatus I find the dGPU is almost ALWAYS activated by something (usually a browser). Also unrelated to 1P, the dGPU is always active when an external monitor is connected, generally not a big deal since whenever connected to a monitor one is also probably connected to AC power, but for anyone testing at home thinking the dGPU is always active, that can be one common cause.

dteare

Thanks for the update and the detailed analysis, jb510! I was hoping the new MBP's would solve this issue but it looks like that was a false hope. On the bright side, it gives me one less reason to upgrade so maybe I can save a few thousand dollars <img src='http://forum.agile.ws/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />



I'm still not aware of a way to prevent this in our code so for the moment using gfxCardStatus seems the only option available.



BTW – I love your avatar. Just looking at it made my MBP enable the stronger GPU <img src='http://forum.agile.ws/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':P' />

khad

Does [b]Preferences > Advanced > Disable Animations[/b] affect this at all? (I would test it myself but I'm still stuck on a — well let's just say I don't have the luxury of having this particular problem.) <img src='http://forum.agile.ws/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/skype_tongueout.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':-P' />