NVIDIA RTX performance so bad it make me scream

[Piotr]

While rotating simple model in shaded mode the screen is jerking and flickering. It has worse performance than my 8 years old AMD card (which suppose to be not suited very well for Rhino, so wtf?)
I don’t know what to do anymore. Need an advise from someone who really understands these cards. So many boxes to tick and things to adjust but they seems only worsen performance.
problem applies for all versions of Rhino.
Rhino 7 SR38 2024-12-3 (Rhino 7, 7.38.24338.17001, Git hash:master @ 97e36efa02d7f71638988290bb2d190fcf1b18c5)
License type: Commercial, build 2024-12-03
License details: Cloud Zoo

Windows 11 (10.0.26100 SR0.0) or greater (Physical RAM: 63Gb)

Computer platform: LAPTOP - Plugged in [100% battery remaining]

Hybrid graphics configuration.
Primary display: Intel(R) Arc™ Pro Graphics (Intel) Memory: 2GB, Driver date: 9-13-2024 (M-D-Y).
> Integrated graphics device with 4 adapter port(s)
- Secondary monitor is laptop’s integrated screen or built-in port
- Windows Main Display attached to adapter port 1
Primary OpenGL: NVIDIA RTX 2000 Ada Generation Laptop GPU (NVidia) Memory: 8GB, Driver date: 3-14-2025 (M-D-Y). OpenGL Ver: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 572.83
> Integrated accelerated graphics device (shares primary device ports)
- Video pass-through to primary display device

OpenGL Settings
Safe mode: Off
Use accelerated hardware modes: On
Redraw scene when viewports are exposed: On
Graphics level being used: OpenGL 4.6 (primary GPU’s maximum)

Anti-alias mode: 8x
Mip Map Filtering: Linear
Anisotropic Filtering Mode: High

Vendor Name: NVIDIA Corporation
Render version: 4.6
Shading Language: 4.60 NVIDIA
Driver Date: 3-14-2025
Driver Version: 32.0.15.7283
Maximum Texture size: 32768 x 32768
Z-Buffer depth: 24 bits
Maximum Viewport size: 32768 x 32768
Total Video Memory: 8188 MB

Rhino plugins that do not ship with Rhino
C:\Users\piotr\AppData\Roaming\McNeel\Rhinoceros\packages\7.0\NVIDIADenoiser\0.4.3\NVIDIADenoiser.Windows.rhp “NVIDIADenoiser.Windows” 0.4.3.0

Rhino plugins that ship with Rhino
C:\Program Files\Rhino 7\Plug-ins\Commands.rhp “Commands” 7.38.24338.17001
C:\Program Files\Rhino 7\Plug-ins\WebBrowser.rhp “WebBrowser”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 7\Plug-ins\rdk.rhp “Renderer Development Kit”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 7\Plug-ins\RhinoBonusTools.rhp “Rhino Bonus Tools”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 7\Plug-ins\AnimationTools.rhp “AnimationTools”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 7\Plug-ins\RhinoRenderCycles.rhp “Rhino Render” 7.38.24338.17001
C:\Program Files\Rhino 7\Plug-ins\RhinoRender.rhp “Legacy Rhino Render”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 7\Plug-ins\rdk_etoui.rhp “RDK_EtoUI” 7.38.24338.17001
C:\Program Files\Rhino 7\Plug-ins\rdk_ui.rhp “Renderer Development Kit UI”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 7\Plug-ins\NamedSnapshots.rhp “Snapshots”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 7\Plug-ins\IronPython\RhinoDLR_Python.rhp “IronPython” 7.38.24338.17001
C:\Program Files\Rhino 7\Plug-ins\RhinoCycles.rhp “RhinoCycles” 7.38.24338.17001
C:\Program Files\Rhino 7\Plug-ins\Grasshopper\GrasshopperPlugin.rhp “Grasshopper” 7.38.24338.17001
C:\Program Files\Rhino 7\Plug-ins\Toolbars\Toolbars.rhp “Toolbars” 7.38.24338.17001
C:\Program Files\Rhino 7\Plug-ins\3dxrhino.rhp “3Dconnexion 3D Mouse”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 7\Plug-ins\Displacement.rhp “Displacement”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 7\Plug-ins\Calc.rhp “Calc”

[Normand (Jakob Normand)]

Hi @Piotr
Sorry if you’ve already gone over this, but here are some great advice and pointers on hybrid systems:

Soooo, you bought a laptop with hybrid graphics and rhino doesn't run right. READ THIS

Hybrid graphics laptops are more and more common if you buy a consumer grade machine. (I recommend buying a mobile workstation for professional modeling but these hybrid machines are quite prevalent in the consumer market, especially for students.) They tend to generate a TON of tech support here because of the way they are set up from the factory. Hybrid systems are built with 2 graphics processors. A low power graphics chip (typically Intel HD or UHD) and a high power graphics card. However…

HTH, Jakob

[Piotr]

Hi Jakob, thanks for reply
I have already set all Rhino versions to max. performance

and the changes applied inside NVIDIA panel have no effect.
The joke is - I have a top available ThinkPad model at the time.

[jeremy5 (Jeremy)]

Which Thinkpad do you have?

[tay.othman (tay.0)]

I have the same GPU as yours, Running 553.05 Production driver with no issues.
your plugins look fine.

so it is either
1- New Feature Driver issue
2- Windows / Software
3- Hardware failure.

[Helvetosaur]

If you disable the NVidia denoiser plug-in and update the Intel driver does it help any?

[David53 (David)]

Having Intel Arc Pro iGPU in such a device… I would hazard a guess that you are running an Intel Meteor Lake laptop (165H).

You may want to check what something like HWinfo is showing when you rotate the viewport, as Meteor Lake was built for efficient performance. Not extreme as Lunar Lake, but it may yet have some reasonably extreme power throttling behavior.

It may be worth conducting your rotations and check what both HWinfo and GPU-Z have to say about what is happening. If there is a power profile problem, then that would seem reasonably obvious.

The Intel Arc drivers are very old, and they have done a huge number of updates since Arc release. It’s definitely worth updating those drivers as well.

[Piotr]

I left my laptop at the office so I will not be able to check anything before Monday buy I will try all suggestions. Thanks guys.

[tay.othman (tay.0)]

have a good weekend, keep us posted.

[mcvltd (Rob McPherson)]

My guess would be the Hybrid Graphics. I had problems with two laptops like this. The lower spec one was being used for supposed ‘low end’ tasks while the high spec one was meant to cut in upon demand. Caused many issues including very poor performance.

Solution was to disable the low spec one completely, in bios, if my memory serves me correctly.

Hope that helps!

[Piotr]

Hi Rob
This was suggested by AI but I didn’t have a chance to try it yet. Sure will do.

[Holo]

We have been told for ten years+ that the developers can not do anything to affect what GPU Windows prefers to use on Rhino (But we users can affect this through drivers and power settings)

So I thought, since AI has developed some insight during the last two years, that I should check with it, and it states that this is now possible on windows 11, I don’t know if this is right or not, but it might be worth a shot @wim

Apparently these are driver-level hooks, and the GPU drivers (NVIDIA or AMD) simply check for the presence of these exports when the app starts. A f the system doesn’t have an NVIDIA or AMD GPU, the exports are just ignored.
For C++ :

extern "C" {
    // NVIDIA Optimus
    __declspec(dllexport) DWORD NvOptimusEnablement = 0x00000001;
    // AMD Switchable Graphics
    __declspec(dllexport) int AmdPowerXpressRequestHighPerformance = 1;
}

And it seems to be an OpenGL option too.
Even though you don’t need to check for vendor presence, you can log or show which GPU is actually being used via OpenGL:

const char* renderer = (const char*)glGetString(GL_RENDERER);
const char* vendor = (const char*)glGetString(GL_VENDOR);

std::cout << "GL_RENDERER: " << renderer << std::endl;
std::cout << "GL_VENDOR: " << vendor << std::endl;

Being able to have a switch so we can choose to run on the low power integrated card when out and about with a laptop could be useful to save power.

Again, I have no idea about how to integrate stuff like this, nor how it affects stability etc, so that I leave up to the developers to figure out.

[CADARTZ]

I’m seeing a theme with these hybrid setups giving all sorts of display issues

[Piotr]

I’m back at the office, so I checked my specs:

Being advised by Chat GPT I have swapped my workflow (I had Rhino on primary and Gh on secondary) and it made the difference (!), meaning it is the Intel card giving me troubles. I have to kill it through BIOS