Info Intel ARC owners thread. 68 games tested, retested, and counting. Includes productivity experiences. Feel free to add your results.

[mikk]

Intel releasing a driver aimed at DX11 games, upto 30% boost https://videocardz.com/newz/intel-t...ver-with-30-average-boost-for-many-dx11-games

But why not for Meteor Lake Arc graphics? Meteor Lake driver 5122 is dated from late November.

 

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But why not for Meteor Lake Arc graphics? Meteor Lake driver 5122 is dated from late November.

That certainly is odd. Maybe they are pouring too many resources into supporting the Claw?

There are some games that need fixing so the sooner the better. There were multiple titles tested that either crashed or had serious rendering issues with the base 125h in the Acer Swift Go 14 -

Though the performance in most of the games was surprisingly good considering it's a thin and light notebook.

 

[mikk]

31.0.101.5186/31.0.101.5234

MTL driver build also did change, videocardz initially wrote 101.5186_101.5122.

 

[Shmee]

I went ahead and stuck this thread, so in general new Intel card users can benefit.

 

[cebri1]

 

[igor_kavinski]

Workaround helps improve gaming performance on outdated Intel CPUs — Resizable Bar UEFI mod works with CPUs as old as Sandy Bridge

Resizable Bar can be accessed by systems dating back to 2011, but it requires a mod.

www.tomshardware.com

ARC cards on older CPUs as far back as Sandy Bridge could be possible!

 

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Retested Starfield with the A750.

First I loaded the M.A.S.T. area save where everyone tests using the Game Pass version. No change in performance with newest drivers. 1080 low preset 30fps with a dip to 29. Higher with FSR but my eyes hated me for it.

The Steam version BETA though: What a jump compared to Game Pass. 1080 medium preset with XeSS quality and 70% sharpening looks better than native in most ways. Some of the expected issues with shimmer on grating, vents, stuff like that. Very minor and go away at other angles or up close. Same high demand spot at M.A.S.T. 45fps. Without Vsync indoors was hitting over 100fps. 👀 The only annoyance is the menu bug is still present. Even saving the game manually triggers the bug where performance tanks. Have to exit and reload. It's only 30 seconds or so but it needs to be fixed.

All in all, I think AMD, the devs, whomever is responsible, shafted us ARC users more than Nvidia. Damned game was unplayable. Now with patches and XeSS it's like using an entirely different GPU.

Frame gen on a TV without VRR wasn't cutting it. XeSS is doing a great job so didn't need it anyways.

 

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HITMAN 3 Will Now Launch On Intel GPUs Under Linux After Hiding The GPU Vendor​

https://www.phoronix.com/news/HITMAN-3-Intel-XeSS-Linux-Again

I don't know why that made me laugh. The big girl in Game of Thrones ringing the bell and yelling shame! We have to hide that we use ARC from the game. Shame!

 

[Ranulf]

Good news I guess. I just hate IOI, the Hitman devs. Scummy prices and drama with those games.

 

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Added Dishonored: Definitive Edition

Forgot how good this game is.

 

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Gamers Nexus retested the whole ARC stack minus the A310. Settings used were too much for the little A380. They used FSR which is understandable for being consistent. I'd have liked to have seen XeSS used for all of the vendors in Starfield and Cyberpunk. It makes Starfield fully enjoyable. I am wondering if they encountered the menu bug where performance tanks. I don't think Steve mentioned it?

 

[mikk]

CS2 performance improvements coming very soon

https://www.reddit.com/r/IntelArc/comments/1ayflf0

The new DX11 driver is almost finished Intel told Gamers Nexus which then can be rolled out for all DX11 games. I hope it comes in March.

 

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Getting the ducks in a row for the B series launch. While it'll be years before we refer to the driver stack as mature, it has come a long way. I am hoping that the refocus on DX12 will yield some real improvements. Some games ARC just underperforms by too much compared to other titles, to accept they are optimized.

Here shortly I will install Nightingale on my A750 setup and see how that goes. 1080 max settings averages over 100fps on my 5800X3D + 7800XT. I played around with upscaling. XeSS looks better than TSR on AMD too. TSR has sizzle and shimmering in the first forest level where it's stable on XeSS. XeSS though makes animal fur look bad. And when there is a hail storm the hail ghosts heavily.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Added games tested and retested. Made the thread the ARC owners thread. There are enough users that it's time everyone feels free to add to the results if they want.

Happy to report Watch Dogs 2 with high res texture pack can now run 1080 ultra settings locked 60 most of the time. A big jump from previous results.

Nightingale I don't know if I should be disappointed or not. A750 is really weak compared to a 7800XT, but then again it cost me $200 instead of $500. It can do quality preset with quality XeSS and look and play well enough. Not getting locked 60fps though. After the 7800XT easily running 1080 Ultra at over a 100 fps I guess I just expected more.

The weird fur is there even with TAA native so that's not on XeSS. Servers are nerfed today, probably due to heavy load, so didn't get a chance to see if the hail ghosting issue is there with hardware XeSS or not.

Almost forgot. Far Cry 3 crashes regardless of what I do. Map editor works but not the game. DX9, DX11, DXVK, no dice.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Far Cry 3 crashes regardless of what I do. Map editor works but not the game. DX9, DX11, DXVK, no dice.

Check Event Viewer. It sometimes lists the reason for the crash. Also, you could try changing the name of the game executable or run it in compatibility mode with the Windows version that was current at the time of game's release.

Some fixes here though just for the iGPU but one of them might work:

https://www.reddit.com/r/farcry/comments/12u2pwy

 

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Got Far Cry 3 running. I don't know which setting/s are not working with ARC, but 1080 medium runs great. With optimal or ultra it'll CTD and won't restart until lowering settings. I will try high settings and see what happens.

Also, after months of experimenting the Intel driver and software assistant utility is trash. It has nerfed ARC driver installs repeatedly. If I download and install them manually they work perfect.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Got Far Cry 3 running.

Any tricks you had to use?

 

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Any tricks you had to use?

1080 medium settings in windowed mode seems to do the trick. I don't think it likes full screen, but I need to isolate that for testing. I know it doesn't like some setting that changes with higher quality presets. Though if it is only ultra I have not determined either. I was satisfied it was running properly for the moment. I played about an hour or so without issue with fps shooting past 200.

Oh that's in DX11 mode. It was also crashing with latest drivers, so that was not the issue. It's down to fullscreen and/or some setting it doesn't like.

 

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Impressive results in video editing on the A580 with a chef's kiss intro-

 

[igor_kavinski]

That doesn't make sense. How can A580 beat the A750 in anything? Are they different architectures?

 

[Hulk]

It seems as though the latest driver release fixed a lot of issues with my Arc 750 and Topaz Video AI. Before this release only 1 older driver would "kind of work." Now I'm seeing much better compatibility and performance with this latest driver.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Prime swapped the Sparkle A310 cooler onto the A380 and added a heatsink under it. Temps are even good for being in a tiny SFF build. People keep saying the A380 is not a gaming card, but that's PCMR nonsense. Particularly since hardware XeSS is a thing. Fun little project that makes me wonder why Sparkle did not do this.

I am also about to upgrade the A750 LE build to a 5800X3D so that will eliminate the CPU bottlenecks.

 

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Added Stubbs the Zombie and Invincible Adam Eve. Also installed the 5800X3D so driver overhead hitting the CPU won't affect gaming results anymore. I'll have results for Dying Light Enhanced Edition shortly.

Drivers continue to improve.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

It seems as though the latest driver release fixed a lot of issues with my Arc 750 and Topaz Video AI. Before this release only 1 older driver would "kind of work." Now I'm seeing much better compatibility and performance with this latest driver.

Added this update to OP.

Dying Light added. Probably just my imagination/placebo effect but everything feels better? smoother? with the 3D CPU upgrade.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Probably just my imagination/placebo effect but everything feels better? smoother? with the 3D CPU upgrade.

Time to try all the games where you felt the slightest hitch before