My laptop has both a dedicated graphics card (NVIDIA GTX 970M) as well as integrated graphics capability on the i5 core (Intel HD Graphics 530). For the most part, the auto select functionality correctly identifies what software to run using the graphics cards (i.e. most computer games) and what to run with the integrated graphics (pretty much everything else). However, when I launch TOEE from the Front End - despite my best efforts - it always uses the integrated graphics. In the NVIDIA Control Panel, I can specify graphics processor for particular programs. However, I can't seem to get TOEE to run with the dedicated graphics card. I've tried setting all of the executables in the Temple of Elemental Evil folder to use the graphics card, but no luck. In addition, I've noticed that the GTX 970M doesn't show up in the graphics settings menu when I launch TOEE without the front end. Any ideas? Maybe I don't actually need the 970 to run the game, but I've had lagging on older machines with lots of enemies or particular areas in Hommlet. Incidentally, my NVIDIA and Intel drivers are up to date, and I'm running the latest version of Co8.
I don't really have much of a clue how that could be resolved, but what OS are you running, and if it's newer than Windows XP, is the game installed somewhere other than Program Files? It could be your system can't 'see' ToEE if it's installed in Program Files, though normally it wouldn't want to run it at all in that case.
Could you disable the integrated graphics card in device manager before you start ToEE? I assume the dedicated card can still be used to run your OS and navigate the settings options within it to revert changes back after you're done playing.