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HD 4000 on my MacBook Pro shared 512 MB RAM from my main memory, which is calculated as part of kernel_task.

My question is simple, is there a way to disable it, stopping it from taking up 512 MB of memory and just use the 650M in all situation.

I can of course not use it with the option under Energy Saver, but that doesn't return the precious memory it steals.

Any idea will be appreciated, I am thinking sysctl?

EDIT July, 2013

Things just got worse as I now see HD 4000 taking not 512 MB but 1024 MB out of my main memory. I am not sure if I was wrong the last time around but it is definitely a bigger issue now.

EDIT 2 July, 2013

The 1024 MB report from both System Profiler and About This Mac seems to be flawed. After reminded by Bart Arondson to look at Activity Monitor. It still just takes up about 512 MB. My guess is that the shared memory part is dynamically adjusted, I will try to dig deeper.

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  • I'm curious on how you found out how much memory the card is using. I see you mention that it's part of kernel_task, but how did you find out which part of the memory of kernel_task is used by the integrated graphics chip?
    – Saaru Lindestøkke
    Commented Jul 24, 2013 at 22:32
  • Simple. Don't look at kernel_task. Look at System Profiler, under Graphics. There will give use information of how much VRAM each graphics chip takes. 1024 MB for HD 4000 for now.
    – Shane Hsu
    Commented Jul 25, 2013 at 6:30

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Use gfxCardStatus - it lets you choose which graphic card to use.

enter image description here

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  • What this application do is to force switch graphics, but what I want to do is to disable the integrated graphics when the system boots up. Meaning, I will allocate no resource for it at all.
    – Shane Hsu
    Commented Apr 14, 2013 at 17:04
  • @ShaneHsu, if you disable it completely, there will be no visual output at any screen, or do you have anther separate graphics chip set.
    – Ruskes
    Commented Apr 14, 2013 at 17:35
  • @Buscar웃 The nVidia one.
    – Shane Hsu
    Commented Apr 14, 2013 at 20:06

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