#Gfxcardstatus integrated only drivers

This change has put a bit of the burden on developers, so if Apple updates its drivers to force some routines to use the dedicated GPU only, then developers will have to rework their code to contend with this change. Starting with OS X 10.7, Apple implemented a change that has the system prefer the more powerful discrete GPU for some graphics processing routines unless developers specifically implement both optional routines that will run well on the integrated graphics and include a setting to inform the system of this capability. The current issues follow a software upgrade from OS X 10.8.3, and appear to be a conflict with the drivers for these systems and new graphics handling requirements in the latest version of OS X. When problems with these systems began occurring I suspected they were hardware-based issues since they recurred on fresh OS installations and were only fixed with motherboard replacements however, Apple took some measures to at least work around the issues with software patches. The 2010 MacBook Pro has had its fair share of graphics-related issues, including black-screen output when waking from sleep and graphics-related kernel panics, both related to the graphics-switching routines in the system. This does not result in crashes or other interruptions in workflow, but it does increase the drain on the systems' battery and result in a shorter working time when not connected to AC power. A number of owners of Apple's mid-2010 MacBook Pro who have upgraded to OS X 10.8.3 are noticing that systems with dual graphics cards will automatically switch to using the more powerful discrete graphics chip regularly, even when using non-graphics intensive applications like Google Chrome, Dropbox, and Growl.

Gfxcardstatus integrated only