We constructed a huge spreadsheet to trace 641 points throughout Intel’s Arc GPU driver software program for the previous 10 months, compiled the motive force launch timeline to see how dedicated Intel is to new sport releases and their pace of driver launches for these video games, checked the game-ready driver launch lag, and clicked practically each single button in Intel’s graphics software program to see what options are damaged — and out of all of that, we solely had one catastrophic crash that appeared to interrupt the drivers.
And to be truthful to Intel, that may be a huge enchancment from after we first examined their driver software program.
Intel Arc GPUs have been round for over three years now, from the “Alchemist” A380 (watch our evaluation) in July of 2022, to the B580 (learn our evaluation) and B570 (learn our evaluation) 10 months in the past, to now. It’s been an actual rollercoaster of ups and downs.
On this story, we’re focusing absolutely on Intel’s driver updates, patch cadence, and bugginess. That is our second revisit and third within the collection to see how Arc is progressing. As a substitute of specializing in efficiency this time, we’re taking a look at how really usable the drivers are since Intel is the newcomer to this house.
Overview
We’ve got two sections to this: Intel’s driver replace timeline and its bugfix consistency for one, then constructive options, bugs, points, and value annoyances in Intel’s present graphics software program.
Excellent Points From Our Final Revisit
Now we’re escaping the patch notes to revisit the problems that we particularly talked about as unfixed or semi-fixed in our One 12 months Later piece. If any of those are nonetheless round after two years, we now have a giant downside.
We’ll begin with a recap of current and prior damaged options, bugs, and shortcomings to see the place Intel has improved, then transfer to their driver replace cadence.
Crash that Broke the Driver
Again when Arc launched, we skilled a variety of driver crashes and occasional driver corruption. That’s improved, however isn’t absolutely resolved.
This time, we had one actually unhealthy scenario the place IGS locked up and ultimately crashed after we used the embedded hyperlink to the Home windows show settings menu from the IGS Show tab. After restarting IGS, the efficiency metrics have been humorously damaged, displaying extraordinarily excessive numbers of “Uncooked” kind, which you’ll’t even choose below regular circumstances.
After rebooting, we didn’t get any video out to the monitor past the Home windows 11 loading spinning graphic. That is when the graphics drivers are loaded, so it appeared the crash cooked the motive force to the purpose of being nonfunctional. Reinstalling it mounted this, however we couldn’t replicate the issue a second time.
Taking place as soon as remains to be an issue. Intel has to repair these excessive severity problems with crashing and driver corruption long-term to win over customers out of the fanatic base.
It’s straightforward to say “it solely occurred as soon as,” which is true, and a variety of our viewers can cope with that. However that is the excellence between Intel and extra established firms in graphics — not that NVIDIA’s drivers have been notably good this yr.
Easy Sync
Easy Sync is up subsequent, which is completely different from different types of body synchronization in that it doesn’t stop tearing, however as an alternative provides a dithering impact on the border between torn frames on display. It initially had points with visible corruption in a number of video games, one among which was Rainbow Six: Siege. We confirmed this in our authentic driver check-in, resulting in Intel disabling it in problematic titles. This was their “repair.” It’s actually onerous to have function issues if the function now not exists within the sport.
We determined to check Easy Sync in Siege X.
To Intel’s credit score, Easy Sync works appropriately on this title. The dithering additionally appears cleaner now than after we final checked out it. We aren’t satisfied that it really makes it nicer to have a look at, however what issues is it isn’t simply damaged. This challenge appears to be resolved.
Pace Sync
Now for Pace Sync, which permits the sport engine to run uncapped, however solely essentially the most not too long ago accomplished frames are despatched to the monitor when the monitor is prepared. The idea was that this enables the latency advantages that come from uncapped body charges, simply with out creating tears. NVIDIA’s Quick Sync is analogous in idea.
Two years in the past throughout our revisit, we discovered Pace Sync to be gone, however it’s again now.
Making an attempt to make use of Pace Sync with Siege brought about the sport to persistently crash on launch. This isn’t talked about as a recognized challenge that we may discover on the Arc patch notes, however there are sporadic studies of comparable points across the web. Intel nonetheless has issues right here.
Overlapping Apps and Settings
The software program is up now.
Intel used to have each “Arc Management” within the driver suite and “Graphics Command Heart” within the Microsoft retailer as a free software, each separate however generally overlapping in options and it typically was a very terrible expertise since you needed to go to the Microsoft Retailer to get among the options.
Within the time since, Intel reduce it down to simply “Intel Graphics Software program,” which Intel migrated to on the finish of final yr, in step with the B-Sequence launch. This was a superb consolidation to get away from the complicated mixture of functions earlier than.
VRR and DRR
One of many annoyances beforehand was that there have been a number of places to regulate Variable Refresh Price. And there nonetheless are.
The Show tab of Intel Graphics Software program has a toggle for Variable Refresh Price, the underside of the Show tab has “Variable Refresh Price Mode,” after which individually, Home windows has its personal “Dynamic refresh fee” below the Superior show menu, which isn’t supported on this occasion despite the fact that the identical web page says that variable refresh fee is supported.
Every of those technically serves a unique objective: The Graphics Software program setting is barely out there when a GPU is linked to a VRR-capable show. The Variable Refresh Price Mode setting is all the time out there and controls whether or not VRR is pressured on windowed functions along with the standard fullscreen ones. We expect this feature is buried and ought to be moved as much as be alongside the primary possibility.
As for dynamic refresh fee, that’s distinct from variable refresh fee and exists to change the refresh fee of the monitor globally. This requires VRR as much as at the very least 120 Hz.
Driver Help Assistant Compelled Set up
Intel initially required customers to put in its “Driver Help Assistant” when putting in the Arc Management software program, regardless of having a checkbox that implied the flexibility to take away it. It was a pressured set up with the software program. Across the time we reviewed the B580, we talked about that Intel had mounted this.
DSA sits there to inform the consumer of latest driver updates, and runs the chance of downloading them robotically.
This was an issue and annoyance for us on take a look at benches, so we needed to take away it every time.
Fortunately, it’s now not a pressured set up and was mounted a short time in the past. You’re capable of freely select any of the parts and software program that sits on prime of the bottom driver. You continue to need to manually decide out of Intel’s information assortment program, however at the very least you really can now whereas nonetheless getting the software program.
HDCP
HDCP is subsequent: We beforehand had issues with having the ability to use a seize card whereas HDCP was on. We had to make use of a janky splitter so as to make it occur.
This time, we didn’t have that challenge. We didn’t attempt a bunch of various combos, however after we connected an Elgato 4K X seize card, HDCP help confirmed as “off” in IGS, and we have been capable of seize with none friction. We’d nonetheless like a handbook toggle to regulate HDCP.
Notification Overload
At launch, Arc Management would blast the desktop with toast notifications, and it wasn’t doable to clear them manually. We simply needed to anticipate them to vanish. Throughout our final revisit, the variety of pop-up notifications was diminished, however not eradicated.
Now with IGS, they’re virtually completely gone. We caught solely 1-2 pop-ups via all the testing, down from dozens in our first spherical and a handful in our second. That’s a superb transfer.
Reduce Options
Over time, Intel has dropped a few options from its graphics software program. We had particular criticism in our authentic evaluation about how Intel was attempting to do an excessive amount of suddenly, trying to duplicate all of the options of its rivals prefer it was knocking out a advertising guidelines only for the sake of placing it on the field. They’re narrowing the scope now, which is nice.
Intel now not bundles recording and streaming performance into the software program. That’s high quality with us – there’s no want for Intel to compete with OBS at this level when it has to cope with sustaining the software program to make sure that it isn’t tousled and damaged.
The earlier overlays of any form have been eliminated. No FPS counter, temperature monitor, nothing. That accountability now sits fully on PresentMon, which is its personal utility.
IGS has a tab for metrics, however it’s tough – extra on that in a minute.
We beforehand included overclocking among the many issues that got here off as pointless fluff on the time that Arc initially launched, particularly since fundamentals just like the voltage setting have been configured to the inaccurate decimal level for the unit of measurement. Efficiency tuning remains to be in they usually’ve mounted many of the fundamentals – it additionally makes much more sense to us now versus throughout Intel’s first-wave efforts with the A-Sequence when all Intel actually wanted to get proper was stability and sport help.
General, we predict Intel’s graphics software program has improved from the simplification and consolidation of software program.
Intel Graphics Software program’s Options and Points
As for the present state of Intel’s software program, it’s damaged down into a number of tabs: Residence, Profiles, Graphics, Show, Efficiency, Video, Notifications, and Settings. We went via all of them, adjusting values, flipping toggles, and usually poking it to see if we may get something to fall out in a basic shake take a look at.
On the whole, most issues appeared to work appropriately. For instance, the video changes panel is so in depth which you can make Cyberpunk appear like the picture above in the event you actually wish to.
Damaged Efficiency Metrics
This subsequent one is bizarre. IGS has efficiency metrics monitoring built-in, however it’s unreliable, usually incorrect, and has very restricted controls.
First off, it’s fairly clear that it makes use of an inner model of PresentMon for issues like frametimes and latency, however we couldn’t discover a approach to level it at a goal software. This could imply that it targets the app with the best GPU load (like a sport).
Nevertheless, it failed to take action in our testing. Generally it confirmed nothing in any respect, and generally it clearly hooked on some unrelated course of, displaying frametimes that align with one thing operating effectively under 60 FPS.
There are alternatives to regulate the sampling window dimension (averaging interval) and sampling interval (the time between polling), however altering them impacts the numbers being proven in oddly proportionate ways in which don’t make mathematical sense.
For instance, inventory values of 1,000ms window dimension and 100ms sampling interval resulted in “GPU Time” studying round 100ms common. Dropping the values as little as doable resulted in “GPU Time” of about 50ms common. Setting all of them the way in which as much as 5,000ms window dimension and 250ms sampling interval resulted in about 250ms for common GPU time. For those who picked up on that sample, you see that it finally ends up studying awfully near regardless of the sampling interval is about to.
There was much more. Setting the window dimension to a shorter timespan than the sampling interval mainly prevents it from working.
We tried it out on one among our take a look at programs and ran PresentMon on the identical time to match the readouts. Generally, IGS failed to indicate something. The remainder of the time, it could be sporadic and clearly unsuitable, like within the picture above, the place it exhibits about 9 FPS AVG, when F1 24 was really operating at 170-ish FPS.
Anyway, the at present ineffective state of IGS’ monitoring tab must be addressed. Intel ought to both eliminate it or make it work. The excellent news is that this isn’t vital to truly utilizing the GPU day-to-day.
Video Seize
We briefly examined video seize with OBS on the B580. It’s able to doing 4K at both of OBS’ non-lossless easy presets, however provided that the GPU has headroom. If it doesn’t, the encoder immediately will get overwhelmed and efficiency falls off a cliff, just like what you’d see in CPU encoding when the CPU is preoccupied.
The cardboard turns into overloaded, so there’s some forgiveness there, however NVIDIA has a bonus right here.
Its NVENC resolution has a extra sleek method of dealing with seize concurrently with closely loaded situations. Intel doesn’t appear to reside as much as that simply but.
Sensible VSync
Intel’s inconsistency comes again into play with Sensible VSync, which is meant to solely activate when the sport’s body fee exceeds the monitor’s refresh fee. It labored reliably when altering the setting previous to launching the sport, however solely labored one single time after we modified it whereas the sport was nonetheless operating; after that, it now not functioned on this order or method, contributing to the general confusion brought on by Intel’s inconsistent driver conduct.
UI – Minor Bugs and Annoyances
We’re transferring on to smaller complaints now.
Whereas we have been within the Graphics tab, we discovered a small UI bug below the Shared GPU Reminiscence Override setting. The default setting on the machine we obtained this seize from was a reminiscence restrict of 57%, or 36.1GB. After we moved the slider, turned off the override, then again on, the slider was nonetheless the place we had set it, however the worth on the left had reset to 36.1GB. One among them is unsuitable. It is a bug.
Much less a bug and extra simply annoying was the truth that after manually getting into a worth, the one approach to lock it in was to click on on the slider. Urgent enter, escape, or clicking away didn’t work. This was only a usability shortcoming.
Additionally annoying was the UI for rearranging the order of the metrics on the Efficiency tab. You’re presupposed to click on and drag the merchandise within the checklist, however it has extraordinarily aggressive edge scrolling, making it troublesome to put them the place you need.
To wrap up our UI complaints, the VRAM Tuning tooltip doesn’t agree with the slider. The tooltip and the slider characterize reminiscence frequency with each GT/s and Gbps, which might be complicated for some customers.
Body Cap Limitations
The subsequent one isn’t a bug in any respect, however is a limitation. Although IGS has the flexibility to restrict body charges, it’s unusually restricted to simply DX9 and DX11 APIs – no DX10, DX12, or Vulkan. We’d assume that there’s some technical cause for the limitation, however from a shopper standpoint, it’s a shortcoming that’s unexplained.
It’s very straightforward to set world or per-game body fee caps with NVIDIA and AMD, they usually don’t appear to care about what API is below the hood.
Sport Prepared
Optimized drivers coinciding with new sport launches are vital to the usability of any GPU for gaming.
NVIDIA has made a concerted effort to market its “Sport-Prepared Drivers,” which is one among its extra significant campaigns and one thing we will get behind. NVIDIA’s power is on this particular class, which is having a driver prepared for the day a sport releases. This requires direct cooperation with the builders to get early entry and generally present engineering assets for shader optimization, one thing we talked with Tom Petersen (now at Intel) about final yr.
This is likely one of the extra necessary areas the place Intel must ship.
Within the time for the reason that B-Sequence launch to after we stopped gathering information, Intel has included “sport prepared” help for 39 whole video games, 34 of which have been talked about as supported on or earlier than the sport’s launch date. That’s not unhealthy — 87% of the overall named video games have been supported in time for a participant to purchase it on launch day and have express tuning from Intel.
Of the 5 that obtained talked about post-launch in patch notes, the typical is simply 2.4 days of lag time. It is a vital enchancment from Alchemist.
That’s a superb ratio of “day zero” video games, and fairly affordable timelines for the few that aren’t. Mockingly, the one with the longest wait was Silksong.
We aren’t conscious of what Intel’s choice or submission course of is for which video games get an express point out like this, or what degree of validation takes place, however primarily based on the information, it looks like Intel is staying on prime of latest releases. They don’t get all of them — Starfield at launch was functionally damaged on Intel. However to be truthful, Starfield at launch was additionally simply functionally damaged.
Driver Timeline
We’ll transfer to a timeline of the motive force launches since Battlemage to get an thought for the way dedicated Intel is to Arc.
We gathered archival driver launch information from TechPowerUp and Intel, beginning on the launch of the B-Sequence (model 6325, December 13, 2024) till roughly mid-September (model 7029), simply earlier than Intel made the principle driver bundle Arc-only and kicked out the 14th Gen IGPs and older. It’s doable we missed a couple of smaller or much less documented hotfixes on this.
Over the past 10 months from what we discovered, Intel has launched 13 validated WHQL drivers and 16 beta drivers. Intel has some areas it pushed, like late Might via June with 3 beta releases and 1 WHQL launch.
On Might twenty sixth, Intel’s 6795 Beta launched new sport help and efficiency enhancements for Elden Ring Nightreign, which might launch 5 days later, Dune: Awakening to arrange for its June tenth launch, and Monster Hunter Wilds, which got here out in February. For at the very least this driver, Intel illustrated that it’s attempting to have drivers prepared in time to make sure compatibility with new video games or enhance their efficiency.
The 6874 WHQL launch from June 2nd had Farming Simulator flickering texture fixes, so these points nonetheless exist for Intel. It additionally had necessary energy administration updates for Lunar Lake Core Extremely 200V collection CPUs.
Simply two days later, Intel pushed the 6876 beta. It had sport help for FBC: Firebreak, Rematch, Stellar Blade, and Rainbow Six Siege X. It additionally featured what’s probably essentially the most obscure repair we’ve ever seen. For the Arc B-Sequence GPUs, Intel stated it mounted “Intermittent visible artifacts might seem in sure utilization situations.” Ah sure, we mounted the issue which may occur generally in a subset of nondescript circumstances. Thanks, Intel.
2 days after that, Intel pushed the 6877 beta driver to handle one particular challenge tied to audio on Core Extremely Sequence 2-equipped handhelds. 6 days in a while the twelfth, they pushed a full launch that solely famous a repair for crashes in Overwatch 2.
The speedy, fast modifications adopted by a significant driver model exhibits Intel is at the very least conserving busy chasing down particular person bugs and fixing them as quick as doable. That’s a superb signal of responsiveness. We expect it is a nice philosophy when it comes to help that caters to the comparatively small group of fanatics who’ve taken the plunge on Arc. It additionally exhibits that Intel is alive. So, it’s type of a canary within the coal mine when it comes to if the GPU help will cease.
We’ll rapidly run via some mild comparisons to NVIDIA and AMD.
In that very same timeframe, NVIDIA sits in some distinction to Intel’s method, having pushed 21 whole drivers (18 commonplace, 1 beta, 2 hotfix). The overwhelming majority of the releases are commonplace WHQL, which is sensible to us contemplating NVIDIA’s dominant legacy place. Its drivers are mature and infrequently require fast fixes — besides the start of this yr, once they launched hotfixes to repair hotfixes.
AMD’s Radeon driver staff was quiet compared to each, having launched solely 11 drivers (5 commonplace and 6 beta). To be clear, the amount of drivers isn’t a sign of the standard of the drivers, however contemplating the frequency of the sport releases, the amount does matter.
XeSS Help
XeSS help is subsequent.
For higher or worse, the business’s favourite buzzword comes into play: AI.
Upscaling is definitely an necessary function at this level. AMD and NVIDIA have FSR and DLSS. We checked on Intel’s progress with XeSS adoption.
This chart exhibits what number of video games help every given type of upscaling. Help for Intel’s XeSS isn’t as in depth as its rivals, totaling 334 titles. This information is pre-XeSS3 announcement, as that’s not absolutely rolled-out but.
AMD practically doubles Intel’s XeSS rely at 624 video games supporting some type of FSR. FSR 1 is considerably decrease high quality than the variations that succeeded it due in main half to being strictly spatial and never temporal, however we’re counting it right here.
NVIDIA holds a numerical victory in opposition to AMD, with 649 titles supporting DLSS Tremendous Decision.
NVIDIA’s introduction of DLSS overrides signifies that most DLSS titles ought to have the ability to be pressured to run the most recent fashions. In fact, the sport issues extra than simply the variety of video games, however NVIDIA will get credit score for having each bases coated.
XeSS 2 is an particularly unhealthy scenario, with solely 44 video games formally supported on the checklist on the time of writing for a resolution which launched alongside Battlemage in December. It’s beginning to look type of deserted. “XeSS 2” is definitely an growth of the function set to incorporate body era and XeLL (low latency), and never a substitute for the precise upscaling in base XeSS. The extra 290 video games we now have listed below XeSS 1 rely simply as a lot when contemplating upscaling alone.
Additionally notable is that Intel not too long ago opened up the likelihood for NVIDIA and AMD GPUs to formally help XeSS Tremendous Decision and Body Technology, aka XeSS-SR-FG, which is sort of an entire alphabet. Intel did this by publishing its XeSS 2.1 SDK. The one requirement is help for Shader Mannequin 6.4, which applies to NVIDIA’s 3000 collection onward and AMD’s 6000 collection onward. Within the time since, Intel has introduced XeSS3, which we detailed in our Xe3 structure article, which talks about their model of MFG.
Lossless Scaling
In fact, primarily based strictly on numbers, Lossless Scaling’s LS1 wipes the ground with all of them, supporting a near-infinite variety of video games (if that’s the metric we’re judging by). That’s the advantage of not needing sport or engine integration, although that does imply picture high quality suffers generally considerably. Though on a technicality, FSR1 can even have an infinite bar as a result of Lossless Scaling can run FSR1, which is type of like, “we heard you want upscaling so we put upscaling in your upscaling so as to upscale when you upscale.”
We’ve got an entire deep dive on that you need to go try in the event you haven’t seen it.
Mounted and Recognized Points
| Intel Arc Graphics Mounted Points | GamersNexus | |
| Complete variety of mounted points | 81 |
| Variety of fixes: Arc A-Sequence | 12 |
| Variety of fixes: Arc B-Sequence | 34 |
| Variety of fixes: Extremely 1 CPU | 4 |
| Variety of fixes: Extremely 2 CPU | 25 |
| Variety of fixes: Software program | 5 |
| Variety of fixes: Unknown/Basic | 1 |
| Common variety of days to repair points (From 44 mounted points that have been talked about as recognized points) | 39.9 |
| Variety of “fixes” that needed to be mounted a second time | 2 |
This desk is deceptively small, contemplating that it required crawling via and collating 641 mentions of recognized points and 81 mentions of mounted points throughout 9 months price of patch notes.
This took some time to place collectively.
Intel declares 81 whole points mounted for the reason that B-series launch – 12 for A-Sequence, 34 for B-Sequence, 4 for Core Extremely 1 built-in GPUs, 25 for Core Extremely 2 built-in GPUs, and 6 for software program or basic fixes. Solely 44 of these whole fixes have been talked about beforehand as recognized points. Of these, the typical time to repair was 39.9 days. We assume that the remainder of the previously-unmentioned fixes have been issues that obtained seen and addressed rapidly, akin to between releases.
We additionally seen two points that have been talked about as “mounted” twice for a similar actual challenge and for a similar product class.
The primary was first talked about as a recognized challenge on April 3, 2025 for the Arc B-Sequence GPUs, “Returnal (DX12) might expertise an software crash throughout gameplay with Ray-Tracing settings turned on.” This was marked as a hard and fast challenge on June thirtieth, however was then mounted a second time on July twenty third, “Returnal (DX12) might expertise an intermittent software crash throughout gameplay with Ray-Tracing settings turned on.” The one distinction is the phrase “intermittent,” main us to suppose edge circumstances that brought about Returnal to crash continued to floor.
The second challenge was on August 7, 2025 for the Arc A-Sequence GPUs, “Mafia: The Outdated Nation (DX12) might exhibit corruptions on character hair throughout gameplay.” It obtained marked mounted on August eleventh, resurfaced, and obtained mounted once more on September tenth. That second replace narrowed the scope all the way down to “sure scenes,” which seems like the identical type of scenario – Intel thought it mounted the issue, however by some means “corruptions on character hair” returned. General although, the necessary factor is the typical time to repair a difficulty that’s listed as recognized, which was slightly below 40 days.
Conclusion
To wrap this up, we predict that the usability and basic annoyance degree of Intel’s Arc GPUs are in a considerably higher place than they have been a yr in the past, undoubtedly higher than two years in the past, and night-and-day from the unique Alchemist launch. So they’re steadily bettering.
The truth that there’s just one piece of software program (Intel Graphics Software program) for all settings is a considerable enchancment, and the truth that it’s a much less bloated app than what got here earlier than can be good.
There are nonetheless issues for Intel to repair, just like the seemingly completely damaged built-in monitoring and the unreliable body sync settings. It may be irritating to have sport crashes simply from selecting Pace Sync, or from seeing Sensible VSync work as soon as, however by no means once more.
There’s additionally issues for Intel to improve, like including body fee caps for extra than simply DX9 and DX11 video games, and if doable, making it simpler to seize video whereas the GPU is fully-loaded.
We expect that the extra aggressive Intel stays on pushing fixes, the higher off Arc might be. General, Intel’s drivers have improved considerably. We nonetheless wouldn’t advocate the corporate’s Arc GPUs to somebody who doesn’t have a variety of endurance or data on do any troubleshooting, nonetheless. We don’t suppose the playing cards are there simply but. For most individuals in our viewers, although, we predict Arc is viable and value contemplating in the event you’re in a position and keen to handle potential technical points in the event that they come up.
When it comes to efficiency per greenback, the playing cards are in a fairly great place.
