According to Activity Monitor, DEVONthink Pro Office (2.9.7.) triggers the use of the Radeon Pro 450 Graphics on my MacBook Pro 2016 running macOS Sierra 10.12.1 (16B2659).
The switch to the dGPU graphics seems to happen as soon as DEVONthink launches.
Is this an expected behaviour?
Kind regards, Sven.
This is completely handled by Sierra, therefore it’s hard to tell whether it’s a bug or feature of Sierra (probably a bug considering the amount of Sierra bugs that we already had to work around). The only workaround right now is to disable the graphics card completely.
Thanks for your clarification. I just installed gfxCardStatus v.2.4.3i https://github.com/steveschow/gfxCardStatus/releases/tag/v2.4.3i which is supposed to be compatible with Sierra on newer MacBooks. This tool allows me to force the use of the integrated GPU exclusively.
Not being endowed with a new MacBook Pro 2016 so I could see for myself 
– What difference does it make if the card is triggered or not? Does something stop working, the battery die, or something adverse?
Using the discrete GPU (Radeon Pro) increases heat and power consumption, which I’d like to avoid.
DEVONthink could opt out of requiring the discrete GPU:
Thanks a lot for fixing this in 2.9.8!
Yes, the fix is much appreciated! Thanks!
For information:
I’m having the exact same experience on my mid 2012 macbook with a nVidia 650 chipset on board.
Side effects are:
I have experienced most of the time it happens when DT hands off an item or document to another app or tool.
Also most of the time returning to none nVidia GPU will not happen, or happens with more difficulty. Meaning that only closing the relevant window or document is often not enough to have the system switch back GPU. In the worst case I need to quit DTPO and restart it.
GFXcard status doesn’t seem to work anymore for me. Don’t remember exactly, but I had to uninstall it at some point due to incompatibility.
I’m still on 10.10.5