Not sure I understand you correctly: it seems you're implying you have an integrated graphics card and a dedicated card as well? If so, you need to go into your BIOS settings and disable the integrated graphics card there. More info on your rig would help.

sounds like an optimus set up to be honest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Optimus

Is this a laptop? What is your dedicated graphics chip?

How can you tell for sure your game(s) is not running on it, but on the Intel graphics?

Have you updated your graphics drivers, for both Intel and NVidia, from the Intel and NVidia pages? If you use drivers from your laptop vendor's homepages, they may be old drivers (e.g. HP seems to lag behind seriously, offering even years old graphics drivers sometimes).

Besides updating your graphics drivers and setting it (even per game) in the NVidia driver settings that NVidia GPU should be used, I don't know what else to do. When I experimented with the same, I found out that some GOG games actually work better, or at all, on e.g. the Intel HD graphics. So sometimes the NVidia GPU gives better results, sometimes Intel Graphics. Depends on the game.

Ah, thanks. I haven't built a rig in about 4 years, so a bit out of the loop, it seems. Never heard of Optimus before.

Right-click on any game -> Run with graphics processor -> High-performance NVIDIA processor.

If you want, choose "Change default graphics processor" instead, then in the control panel, switch to the "Global Settings" tab and change the preferred graphics processor from "Auto-select" to the "High-performance NVIDIA processor."

Keep in mind that in this way, everything will run with the Nvidia GPU, which will eat up more battery and energy than the dedicated Intel GPU; and to be honest, not every single game needs the Nvidia GPU to run well...some could very much work off on an Intel fine enough, and with less power consumption.

Thanks for the replies.
Yes it is a laptop with an integrated graphic card, Intel Graphic HD 4000, and a dedicated graphic card, Nvidia Geforge GTX 850M. Both of them are updated.
I have already tried changing the global settings in the Nvidia control panel, without success, as well as right clicking on the game file and selecting High Performance Processor.
In Nvidia control panel I checked "Show GPU activity on tray" so I can see when games don't run with the dedicated graphic card.
What kind of optimus set up are you suggesting? Isn't the bios change risky?
Thanks again

That is strange. I also possess an Nvidia Optimus laptop, with the same GPUs (although it's a 840m, not 850m), and this setting works for me.

By the way, Nvidia Optimus refers to the current setup of including a dedicated Intel GPU and a high-performance Nvidia GPU in the same laptop. It aims to decrease battery consumption by offloading some low-graphics apps and games to the Intel GPU while the Nvidia GPU handles all the hitting at higher battery consumption. That's the goal of Optimus as far as I'm concerned.

Strange indeed..
So there is no control panel for Optimus I guess?

No, it's all there in the Nvidia Control Panel which you just accessed and changed the setting in. By the way, did you make sure you saved the new settings? The control panel doesn't show them until you select a change...

Yep, quite sure...
I also have this issue with more "recent" games like Trackmania United and Unreal Tournament 2004. This makes them unplayable..

If you had multiple monitors and each monitor was using a different video card, I know that specifying a specific card/display is lacking on a LOT of games. However setting the better/dedicated card as the primary in your display options (for windows) would probably default to using it.

Another option could be to go into the BIOS and turn off the integrated graphics chip, forcing only the NVidia card to be in use.

No, all it means is you turn off the integrated graphics chip altogether, so you're always using the dedicated graphics card. It will mean more power consumption. But there's no risk, unless you start goofing with other BIOS settings. You could always turn it back on if you want. But that's a pain in the ass.

I believe it's not really rainbows, candies and butterflies and whatnot, you see. Once a time ago, I took down the Intel GPU driver, it was causing me issues, and the whole laptop was getting problematic at that point that I had to install it again. Though I forgot what the issue was. So in fact, he has to live with the Optimus combination.

Actually, there is a risk: If a game overuses the GPU, it could (depending on how good the computer's cooling system is) cause the computer to overheat, which can cause problems including locking up the entire computer. This is typically due to the game not limiting its CPU/GPU usage when it needs to.

If you actually do run into a game overheating the system, switching to the Integrated GPU when playing the game might be necessary, and you might also try power-saving mode when playing that game. There is no reason the game needs to run at 10,000+ FPS.

La-Mulana is an example of a game that has this sort of issue, and I fixed it on my system (which has only integrated Intel graphics) by lowering the maximum CPU speed. Personally, however, I consider this to be a bug in the game.