Intel’s latest Arc graphics driver brings lofty performance improvements to Team Blue’s first-gen GPU family. The Intel Arc & Iris Xe Graphics – WHQL driver optimizes performance for multiple upcoming games, including “The Outlast Trials”, “The Lord of the Rings: Gollum”, and “Minecraft: Bedrock”. The Outlast Trials, in particular, gets a massive 65% uplift at 1080p compared to the previous driver.
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is up to 11% faster at 1440p “High”. Minecraft Bedrock also sees a healthy boost at 1080p and 1440p, gaining up to 30% and 34%, respectively, with ray-tracing enabled. The entire list of game optimizations included in the driver, along with fixes, can be found below:
The Outlast Trials (DX12)
- Up to 65% improvement at 1080p with Ultra settings.
- Up to 52% improvement at 1440p at High settings.
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum (DX12)
- Up to 4% improvement at 1080p with Epic settings.
- Up to 11% improvement at 1440p at High settings.
Minecraft Bedrock (DXR)
- Up to 30% improvement at 1080p with Ray Tracing enabled in 8 RT chunks.
- Up to 34%/28% improvement at 1440p with Ray Tracing enabled at 8 RT chunks / 24 RT chunks.
Products with Intel Core processor:
- Battlefield: 2042 (DX12) may have color corruption in the in-game menu.
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (DX12) may have color corruption in the Quick Play lobby.
Fixed issues in Intel Arc Control Software
- Windows UAC Admin is required to install and start Arc Control.
- The Live Performance Monitoring page may not apply the desired removal of some performance metric tiles.
- The Resizable BAR status may display an incorrect value on systems with multiple Intel® Graphics Adapters.
Intel Known Issues Resolved
Intel Arc Graphics Products:
- The Last of Us (DX12) may experience an application crash during gameplay.
- The system may hang upon waking up from sleep. It may be necessary to power cycle the system to recover.
- GPU hardware acceleration may not be available for media playback and encoding with some versions of Adobe Premiere Pro.
- Topaz Video AI may experience errors when using some models for video enhancement.
Products with Intel Core processor:
- Total War: Warhammer III (DX11) may experience an application crash when loading battle scenarios.
- Call of Duty Warzone 2.0 (DX12) may show corruption in certain light sources, such as fire.
- Conqueror’s Blade (DX12) may experience an application crash during game startup.
- A Plague Tale: Requiem (DX12) may experience application instability during gameplay.
Known Issues in Intel Arc Control Software:
- Arc Control Studio capture with certain games may incorrectly output multiple video files.
- With Intel Arc Control installed, systems may experience slightly higher than expected power consumption during system sleep or hibernation.
- The notification “could not stop Highlights” may appear when stopping Auto-Game Highlights.
- Onscreen camera preview may incorrectly persist when switching between Desktop and Overlay modes.
- The “Connector” type on the Display page may incorrectly display DP when using an HDMI connection.
