The rendering device is not connected directly to the selected display

[wotan]

I was going to run a benchmark (night raid) in my laptop and this warning appear:

"The rendering device is not connected directly to the selected display. The frame rate may be limited by PCI Express bandwidth and other factors."

I have 2 options in rendering device: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 and Intel HD Graphics 630 Mobile.

in display I just have 1 option: Generic PnP monitor (\\. \DISPLAY1)

The warning appears when NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 is selected as rendering device but not in Intel HD Graphics 630 Mobile.

I previously run this benchmark (https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/47759369?) however, the warning “Graphics driver is not approved” was present, so I reinstalled the drivers and now the warning of rendering device is present and the score for the same benchmark decreased significantly (https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/47894626?) however, now the result is valid.
Is there something to worry here? Is this normal?

[UL_Jarnis]

This is completely normal. The notification is there so you can understand that the GPU that is rendering (1050) is not physically attached to the monitor used (internal laptop screen, so HD 630 attached)

This is a new feature with the latest update that now allows you to directly choose the GPU and the monitor (and as a bonus, 3DMark.com now 100% knows for certain which GPU was used when this new 3DMark 2.12 is used)

There can sometimes be performance differences between a situation where rendering output is copied to another GPU and when not. Most common scenario would be something like a 2080 max-Q running Night Raid - the score when copying to laptop screen vs. outputting to an external monitor that is directly attached to the dGPU will be different.

This is mostly down to framerate. You can assume that if the test runs at less than 120 frames per second, it most likely is not affected in any way by this so the notification is there mostly so that you understand that the iGPU is the actual GPU attached to the monitor you are using.

The notification is also useful in cases where you have multiple monitors on a desktop PC with some of them attached to secondary or iGPU. In such cases the monitor and where it is attached to can limit the score.

TLDR: Unless you think your score is somehow unusual, the notification is just for information purposes and it is completely normal that it shows on laptops with two GPUs. However, it can be an important piece of information if you are seeing less than expected performance and the test is running at high framerates (120fps+)

If you attach an external monitor you can verify if the copy to iGPU has any performance impact as externally attached monitor would connect to the dGPU (1050)

[hifan]

With my new Gigabyte Aorus 17G with 3080 mobile I experience such a problem too. I am fully aware that - other than with the 10xx models - the 30xx mobile models are far from the desktop models performance (so the 3080m is even below desktop 3070), especially the Aorus 17G runs it at only 105W, but..
In 3DMark TimeSpy Details I get this warning when choosing the 3080 and my external monitor (which of course I want to use and NOT the laptop's own display).
And indeed: I only get a score of about 7000 running with the external display (attached with HDMI or MiniDP), while it is 9500 running with the internal display only. The latter is at least near what reviewers benchmarked for the 17G.
Getting only 70% of performance when using an external display of course is more than disappointing. What did Gigabyte do wrong here?
I never noticed any warnings about this in notebook reviews, it should not be "normal" that you cant get the full performance when attaching a monitor!?
Other than what you write above here the 3080 dGPU seems not directly connected to the display ports (other way round)?
The tests are running way below 120fps by the way (46 and 42 fps in the two graphics tests).
Thanks for any explanations and hints..

(The monitor is an Asus MX27U - no special gaming modes / high fps, standard 60Hz)

[hifan]

Answering myself: setting the external display as the only active one (instead of "duplicate" - so the NB display itself stays off / black, however Windows 10 then does no longer let you choose a resolution in its display settings and also the scale setting must be set via advanced / user defined): with that the warning in the 3DMark details / graphics and monitor selection disappears - and with it also the scores go up! (also in real world games like Valhalla the performance improves)
Quite strange, but glad I could finally unleash the performance of the NB with an external monitor too..

[UL_Jarnis]

Duplicate mode (instead of extend or exclusively using just one) indeed causes the same limitation, the act of duplicating the image is making a copy, so your framerate will be affected if it is high...

[hifan]

OK, good to know, I think awareness of this is much too small. Maybe because it does not have a big effect in many cases - I also did not notice any problem with my previous notebook. You said (again) "if framerate is high" (previously if above 120fps). It is not in my case. But perhaps it has to do with the fact that the builtin panel has 300Hz.. And even if it is off (laptop lid closed and attached to external monitor), with mode "duplicate" every frame might be put out 5 times (60Hz * 5 = 300Hz), even if a game and the 3080 only can render like 40fps..?

[UL_Jarnis]

Duplicate mode may not care about the actual framerate, especially if the desktop refresh rate is at 300hz. Haven't really tested the whole scenario when duplicating the image vs. extending the desktop to a second monitor.

[Steven Cojo]

I have the same issue and I keep getting unknown on GPU and CPU. I've tested it on other laptops with both integrated and dedicated cards, but didn't face this issue before.

[UL_Jarnis]

If all hardware is showing unknown, check that Futuremark SystemInfo is installed (revalidating files from Steam triggers the install on next start, ensure any old version is removed)

if problem persists, email to [e-mail] with the most recent result file from Documents/3DMark/