vRAM Not in Use - Out of date drivers - Unused Graphic Card

GrantEkert · 05 Apr 2014

Hi. I want to use 3D features in Photoshop but this message comes up:

It seems as if I don't have enough vRAM. I went to my Advanced Display settings to check and found this:

It looks as if I have more than enough. Are my drivers out of date?

DirectX Diagnostic:

Also, my computer said it came with "Radeon Graphics" but it seems as if my computer is using Intel and not Radeon to help it. How can I tell if Radeon is in use?

Thanks.

System information:

essenbe · 05 Apr 2014

The specs for your Nothbook are here ( HP Pavilion dv7-6135dx Entertainment Notebook PC Product Specifications HP Pavilion dv7-6135dx Entertainment Notebook PC | HP® Support) the Drivers from HP are here (Software & driver downloads HP Pavilion dv7-6135dx Entertainment Notebook PC | HP® Support) You may try updating your drivers and especially the AMD high definition drivers. Your notebook uses switchable graphics, which means the CPU decides which to use. What may be happening is the CPU is using the on board graphics with photoshop rather than the dedicated graphics. I'm not sure how to change it with AMD, but see if you have an option in CCC to use High Performance, which should use the dedicated graphics. Just be aware, with using the dedicated graphics, you will get better performance but your battery life will suffer. But, I would be sure I updated the drivers first. The battery life, you can deal with, as long as you are aware of the fact. I assume you could always switch back to the current settings when high performance is not needed.

GrantEkert · 06 Apr 2014

I went to the HP driver link as you suggested. I've done this many times in the past and have gotten the same result.

In the "driver-graphics" section, I downloaded both.

When I installed the Intel one:

So I overwrote them. After that:

It didn't install.

While installing the AMD one, it asked me to overwrite which I did. This installer came up.

While installing:

However it continued and my screen flickered, went blank, and refreshed during the installation process. After it ended, it said "Finished" and said a failure occurred during the installation.

Failure report:

Mellon Head · 06 Apr 2014

It looks like it installed the driver all right, but it failed on the MS Visual C++ Redistributable. That may not be a huge issue. Most systems have it on them already, and this installer maybe just couldn't copy over the one that you already had.

Does the graphics card work? Do you get an error in Device Manager for the Radeon card?

GrantEkert · 07 Apr 2014

Mellon Head said:

It looks like it installed the driver all right, but it failed on the MS Visual C++ Redistributable. That may not be a huge issue. Most systems have it on them already, and this installer maybe just couldn't copy over the one that you already had.

Does the graphics card work? Do you get an error in Device Manager for the Radeon card?

How do I check? Also when I go to the AMD site to download a driver with the auto-detect and manually, it says my system hardware does not support the installation.

Mellon Head · 07 Apr 2014

Open up Device Manager and look at your graphics card. You should see "Radeon <whatever card it is>..." without a yellow triangle next to it. If you don't see that, take a screenshot of your Device Manager and post it, please.

GrantEkert · 07 Apr 2014

Mellon Head said:

Open up Device Manager and look at your graphics card. You should see "Radeon <whatever card it is>..." without a yellow triangle next to it. If you don't see that, take a screenshot of your Device Manager and post it, please.

I also read online that I should use HP support assistant? Catalyst Mobility cannot be downloaded due to incompatible ... - HP Support Forum - 3099093

Mellon Head · 08 Apr 2014

The driver is installed and the Radeon card is being recognized, judging by Device Manager. I think that you just have to tell your PC to use the Radeon card and you'll be good to go. It should either be, as essenbe said, by using Catalyst Control Center to set the graphics to high performance, or some setting in BIOS. Some laptops even have a switch on the side of them to enable the internal graphics card.

GrantEkert · 08 Apr 2014

Mellon Head said:

The driver is installed and the Radeon card is being recognized, judging by Device Manager. I think that you just have to tell your PC to use the Radeon card and you'll be good to go. It should either be, as essenbe said, by using Catalyst Control Center to set the graphics to high performance, or some setting in BIOS. Some laptops even have a switch on the side of them to enable the internal graphics card.

I'm almost positive I don't have a switch. Thing is I would have fixed this long ago if I could launch Catalyst. Whenever I click one of these:

nothing happens. So I went to see what to do about that and tons of other people have had the same problem HP computers and Radeon cards. Some suggested uninstalling everything to do with Radeon, booting into Safe Mode and doing stuff, etc. So I'm not sure what to do. Since Catalyst wont launch, I tried re-installing it and it said my computer hardware doesn't support it.