On Nvidia laptops, MC picks integrated graphics

Modern laptops let you run games on either intel graphics or the much more powerful nvidia GPU.

By default, the choice is set to "auto" in the Nvidia control panel, all games I've come across so far have correctly picked the discrete GPU except minecraft.

reproduce: load the game and hit F3, check gpu at top right

workaround: change the default in the nvidia control panel from "auto" to "high performance nvidia processor"