Intel has released a new driver for its Intel Arc graphics cards, specifically the 'Meteor Lake' Intel Core Ultra mobile processors with built-in Arc graphics cards.
The new driver update includes performance updates for cards like the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H, Ultra 5 125H, and Ultra 9 185H and features massive improvements to DirectX 11 titles ranging from 7% to 155% boosts in framerate. Some of the most impressive jumps are a 65% framerate increase in Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare and Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, and a massive framerate increase of 155% in Just Cause 4.
It’s important to note that this driver covers DirectX 11 titles at 1080p resolution with 'Medium' settings enabled. Though DirectX 11 is used in older titles, some new games like Palworld also use the API, which receives a staggering 155% boost in framerate. In addition, this new driver covers Last Epoch as well as the DirectX 12 update for Sea of Thieves.
The release notes for the update also cover known bugs and issues like sporadic crashing for Dragon Quest X Online, terrain corruption in Diablo 4, crashing in the Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves collection, and other apps crashing. These are most likely ones that will be fixed in the next update.
Below is the full list of improvements for their respective games.
- Assassin's Creed Syndicate (DX11) - Up to 65% average FPS uplift at 1080p with Medium settings
- Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (DX11) - Up to 17% average FPS uplift at 1080p with Normal settings
- Divinity Original Sin 2 (DX11) - Up to 25% average FPS uplift at 1080p with Medium settings
- Far Cry 5 (DX11) - Up to 8% average FPS uplift at 1080p with Normal settings
- Halo: The Master Chief Collection (DX11) - Up to 19% average FPS uplift at 1080p with Original settings
- It Takes Two (DX11) - Up to 24% average FPS uplift at 1080p with Medium settings
- Just Cause 3 (DX11) - Up to 18% average FPS uplift at 1080p with Medium settings
- Just Cause 4 (DX11) - Up to 155% average FPS uplift at 1080p with Medium settings
- Palworld (DX11) - Up to 14% average FPS uplift at 1080p with Medium settings
- Rise of the Tomb Raider (DX11) - Up to 9% average FPS uplift at 1080p with Medium settings
- Rust (DX11) - Up to 9% average FPS uplift at 1080p with Medium settings
- SCUM (DX11) - Up to 6% average FPS uplift at 1080p with Medium settings
- Sid Meier's Civilization VI (DX11) - Up to 27% average FPS uplift at 1080p with Medium settings
- Snowrunner (DX11) - Up to 49% average FPS uplift at 1080p with Medium settings
- Warframe (DX11) - Up to 7% average FPS uplift at 1080p with Medium settings
- XCOM 2 (DX11) - Up to 8% average FPS uplift at 1080p with Medium settings
Intel Arc graphics are good but could be better
The Intel Arc graphics cards continue to improve in performance and efficiency with each new update and are rapidly approaching some of the best graphics cards on the market. Not to mention that Intel’s cards are on the low-end budget spectrum, which is a market that’s seriously lacking this generation due to AMD and Nvidia’s apathy.
Cards like the Intel Arc A770 and Intel Arc A750 are also hitting their stride when it comes to creative and editing workloads, with as much as 40% increased performance compared to the 2022 launch drivers. Indeed these graphics cards are a far cry from their underpowered launch versions and deserve to stand with their Team Green (Nvidia) and Team Red (AMD) rivals.
However, Team Blue’s (Intel) cards are still lagging in key areas like AI development and gaming, meaning that they're not being considered a viable investment. The January 2024 Steam Hardware & Software Survey proves this to be true, with Nvidia still considered the golden child. It also struggles with running much older games and all together could not run Starfield, an issue that Nvidia and AMD do not share.
All in all, these are points that Intel needs to take into consideration before they launch a new generation of graphics cards. If the tech giant can address these issues, it’ll have truly the best cheap graphics cards around.
