Newer laptops with high-power GPUs often seem to have another lower-powered GPU as well. To save power and extend battery life, the low power GPU gets used for applications that don't need the power-hungry gaming GPU.

Unfortunately, the nVidia driver that normally selects the GPU automatically, without you even having to notice, can't seem to do tihs properly for Java applications, so you have to force the GPU setting for all java apps to "high performance processor" if you use any java games or other java apps that need it.

Just open up the nVidia control panel by right clicking on the system tray icon or searching for "nvidia control", then click on "Manage 3D Settings" over on the left.


Now click the "Program Settings" tab and click "Add" javaw.exe

You will probably need to Browse to C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\bin to find javaw.exe. Also note that it's javaw.exe, not java.exe.

Then change "Preferred graphics processor" to "High-performance NVIDIA processor"

You can also change the global settings to have the system always use the high performance GPU for all applications all the time, but this will consume more power and shorten your battery life when you're not plugged into the wall and are using applications that don't need it.

Also note that because you're setting this for all java applications, all of your java applications will now use the high power GPU. This will cause all java apps to consume more power, even the ones that don't need it.