Intel’s new Arc driver supercharges Alchemist GPUs, almost quadrupling the frame rate in one case

Huge boost in some PC games with average fps gains of 37%

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Intelhas deployed a new graphics driver and it seriously superchargesArc GPUsto the tune of a 268% boost in one case.

That’s an eye-opening figure of course, and while the gains for other games – there are boosts across a range of DX11 and DX12 titles – are somewhat more modest, they are still pretty impressive.

And they are, we should note, an average fps boost, as opposed to a best-case scenario, though confusingly Intel lists them as “up to x% average FPS uplift,” but we take the mention of the word average here at face value.

The biggest increase with the Arc (and Iris) driver version 31.0.101.5186/31.0.101.5234 is delivered to Just Cause 4 with the mentioned 268% increase over the previous driver. That represents a not far off quadrupling of the frame rate, which is frankly incredible. Just Cause 3 also gets a 160% boost, a hefty improvement (this is at 1080p resolution, by the way).

Other big gainers include Elex II (101% boost at 1080p), Space Engineers (69%, 1080p), Anno 1800 (33%, 1080p), Civilization 6 (32%, 1080p), Hunt: Showdown (27%, 1080p),Apex Legends(26%, 1080p), Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth (25%, 1080p), Warframe (20%, 1080p), Watch Dogs: Legion (16%, 1080p) and Tekken 8 (15%,4K).

The Last of Us Part 1 and Returnal are some more high-profile examples from the list, although they received a more modest (but still worthwhile) increase of 6% (1080p) in both cases.

Check out the full list of games with their respective boosted frame rates inIntel’s driver notes.

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Analysis: Just Cause for celebration

Overall, there are 24 games with better frame rates thanks to this driver, and it delivers an average 37% uplift across those titles, which is a seriously strong showing. Granted, that average is pulled up a fair bit by the ridiculous gains with Just Cause, but still – you can’t help but be impressed with the progress here.

True, we’re getting used to seeing some big gains from Intel with Arc drivers anyway, and in part to begin with, that was down to starting from a very low baseline with older PC games in particular. In other words, there was a lot of room for performance improvements and this work was absolutely necessary optimization that needed to happen.

Indeed, Just Cause was one of the games that evidently still needed some serious work, pulling up the average considerably here as noted.

However, the consistency with which Intel is making progress with every driver release – and taking some huge steps forward with some new Arc drivers, like this one – fills us with hope that maybe withBattlemage later this year, we’ll witness a true rival forAMDandNvidiaGPUs. At least at thelower-end of the graphics card spectrum– there won’t be any high-end Battlemage GPUs, of course, and somedoubt has been cast on mid-range prospectstoo. But still, the budget bracket is in many ways the most important area to be shaken up with better competition for the current duopoly.

Amidst this optimism, though, what Intel needs to ensure it doesn’t do going forward is to completely fumble anddrop the ball on a major launch like Starfield. Fingers firmly crossed that this was a one-off blip.

ViaWccftech

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Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - ‘I Know What You Did Last Supper’ - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).

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