No not in case of a laptop. By default it chooses the HD4000. Then if you're going to do work that demands more graphic power, it switches to the nvidia card.... at least in theory. Practically it doesn't always work that way. My laptop has a HD3000 and ATI. With most applications, it changes fine, but poser for example keeps on choosing the HD3000. In the end I switched off the HD3000 completely to prevent switching cards and make sure it always picks the right one. Switching is done to preserve power, so if you travel a lot the HD4000 will preserve energy.

I'm not sure which nvidia you have in it, but the HD4000 isn't too bad at all, but I assume the nVidia is better.

I'm hoping you have windows 7 and nVidia works the same as ATI....... If you go to your desktop (no matter which application is running) and right mouse click you get a menu. Top option is the graphical properties and the second one just below you should click (I'm not sure what it's called in english, my windows 7 is dutch). Now you get a window that tells you which graphic card is running at the moment and you should be able to switch cards from there as well.

I've got my laptop set up that it will always choose the better one, no matter what. You can set this through energy management or the grahics options, telling it to always run the high powered gpu.

Artwork and 3DToons items, create the perfect place for you toon and other figures!

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?vendor=23722

Due to the childish TOS changes, I'm not allowed to link to my other products outside of Rendo anymore :(

Food for thought.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYZw0dfLmLk