Huge Progress – Intel reveals huge performance increases with new ARC GPU drivers

Intel showcases huge performance updates for their ARC GPU drivers – A large step forward for Intel 

Intel has given us a an update on their progress with their ARC GPU drivers, showcasing huge performance gains across a large number of titles as well as an increase in driver release frequency, something that has allowed Intel to support more newly released PC games on day-1. 

Since the release of their first ARC graphics cards in 2022, Intel has made a lot of progress with their GPU drivers, delivering huge performance gains across a wide range of popular PC games, with especially large gains for DirectX 9 titles. 

Since launch, Intel has delivered 43% performance gains in DirectX 9 games with their ARC A750 graphics card, and with today’s ARC update, Intel has revealed significant performance gains for DirectX 11 games.

Since launch, Intel has added a huge number of DirectX 9 optimisations to their ARC GPU drivers, delivering performance gains across a wide range of games. These optimisations have differing effects on a game-by-game basis, but on average Intel has stated that their optimisations deliver 43% performance gains on average. Below, you can see that these performance gains vary from +10% in games like Guild Wars 2 and For the King, and can be as high as 77% for games like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and CS:GO.

More optimisations are coming

When discussing future the future of Intel’s ARC GPU drivers, Intel’s Tom Petersen simply stated that their work is never done when it comes to ARC driver optimisations. This means that gamers should expect further refinements to Intel’s ARC drivers moving forward, as Intel’s teams are working hard to extract as much performance from their hardware as possible.

Huge progress for XeSS

Despite being a minor player within the GPU market, Intel has done a great job getting game developers to adopt their XeSS AI upscaling technology. So far, over 70 games support Intel’s XeSS technology, and on the driver front, Intel has updated their drivers with specific game support for 57 newly released games. 

Since launch, Intel has released over 30 new drivers for their ARC graphics cards, each of which have delivered performance improvements to gamers. This has come in the form of game-specific driver optimisations, and deeper optimisations that have delivered performance gains across a broader selection of PC games (like Intel’s API-focused updates for DX9 and DX11). 

DirectX 11 Improvements – Intel’s latest ARC Gaming Boost

Intel’s focus for their Q3 ARC update was the improvements that the company has made to DirectX 11 performance, delivering performance gains in popular games that reange from Apex legends to Destiny 2, to League of Legends and even Overwatch 2. 

Thanks to their DirectX 11 driver updates, Intel has delivered significant performance gains to pretty much every available DirectX 11 title. This is thanks to a broad range of small optimisations that have added up to deliver significant performance gains that affect a huge number of PC games.  

On average, Intel has stated that DirectX 11 game performance has improved by 19%, with performance gains ranging from 5% to 33% in the chart below. These are huge performance gains for a free driver update to deliver, and moving forward Intel plans to squeeze more performance out of their ARC GPUs with future driver updates.

Higher framerates and smoother performance

While increases to average framerates are useful, Intel has been quick to comment on the increased smoothness that their new GPU drivers deliver. With their latest ARC drivers, Intel has been able to deliver large increases to 99th percentile frametimes, effectively increasing the minimum framerates that gamers experience. 

While the chart above showcases 5-33% increases in average framerates, the chart below shows 9-45% increases in 99th percentile framerates. This means that 99th percentile framerates are seeing larger increased than average framerates under DirectX 11, which means that framerate stability has increased and games are smoother as a result of this.

With their latest ARC driver updates, Intel has delivered significant performance gains in DirectX 11 titles, a change that should make Intel ARC GPUs a lot more attriactive to games who play titles like Destiny 2, Apex Legends, Valorant, and other competitive DX11 games. 

Intel’s plans for ARC – Battlemage and Beyond

While Intel’s Q3 2023 ARC update focuses on their current-generation of ARC products, Intel were keen to emphasise that their driver optimisations for ARC Alchemist series products will apply to the company’s future graphics architectures. Even if you are not interested in Intel’s current generation GPUs, you should know that these continuous driver enhancements from Intel will lead to a stronger launch for Intel’s next-generation GPUs, codenamed “Battlemage”. 

With Battlemage, Intel will be able to deliver higher performance levels and compete with both AMD and Nvidia at a higher level. With Intel’s optimised driver stack, Battlemage will not suffer from the same problems as the company’s ARC GPUs has at launch, making Intel a more viable competitor within the high-end GPU market.

If there is one thing to take away from Intel’s Q3 2023 ARC update it is this. Intel’s ARC GPU drivers have improved significantly since launch, and that places the company in a much stronger competitive position than before. This is great news for the GPU market as a whole, as it sets up next-generation Battlemage architecture to have a huge impact on the PC gaming market.  

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