Hey Arc Laptop Owners, Intel's Latest GPU Driver Boosts FPS By Up To 155%
It's barely been four weeks since we wrote about a WHQL-certified Intel Arc graphics driver purporting to deliver massive performance gains by triple-digit percentages in some titles. Our coverage led to Intel creating a cool graphic (see above) and lest anyone thought it was mere lip service, it's now offering another WHQL-certified driver release with more huge gains, this time aimed at laptop gamer's running on integrated Arc graphics.
Before we get to those figures, let's talk about WHQL versus none WHQL drivers, both of which Intel doles out rather frequently. WHQL-certified drivers mean they've been "thoroughly tested by Intel, have passed Windows Hardware Lab Kit testing on various platforms and configurations, and are signed by Microsoft" as being compatible with Windows.
Intel's non-WHQL driver releases are also "thoroughly tested" and offer "the same functional quality as WHQL-certified drivers," they just are not yet signed by Microsoft as they haven't completed the full complement of the Windows Hardware Lab Kit testing.
No need to worry about the latter here, as Intel's 31.0.101.5333 WHQL driver package is its latest release. The top highlights are 'Game On' optimizations for Last Epoch and the DirectX 12 update for Sea of Thieves, both for Arc A-series graphics cards and Core Ultra processors with built-in Arc GPUs.
However, what really stands out is yet another round of performance gains across a spattering of games, culminating in a claimed 155% boost in Just Cause 4 (DX11). That and the rest listed below apply Core Ultra CPUs with Arc iGPUs.
Here's the full list...
- Assassin's Creed Syndicate (DX11): up to 65% at 1080p with Medium settings
- Call of Duty: Infinity Warfare (DX11): up to 17% at 1080p with Normal settings
- Divinity Original Sin 2 (DX11): up to 25% at 1080p with Medium settings
- Far Cry 5 (DX11): up to 8% at 1080p with Normal settings
- It Takes Two (DX11): up to 24% at 1080p with Medium settings
- Just Cause 3 (DX11): up to 18% at 1080p with Medium settings
- Just Cause 4 (DX11): up to 155% at 1080p with Medium settings
- Palworld (DX11): up to 14% at 1080p with Medium settings
- Rise of the Tomb Raider (DX11): up to 9% at 1080p with Medium settings
- Rust (DX11): up to 9% at 1080p with Medium settings
- SCUM (DX11): up to 6% at 1080p with Medium settings
- Sid Meier's Civilization VI (DX11): up to 27% at 1080p with Medium settings
- Snowrunner (DX11): up to 49% at 1080p at Medium settings
- Warframe (DX11): up to 7% at 1080p with Medium settings
- XCOM 2 (DX11): up to 8% at 1080p with Medium settings
What's essentially at work here is Intel's continued effort to deliver performance that's consistent with expectations on games both old and new., and taking into account both desktops and, with this release, laptops. Arc is still a relatively new architecture in the grand scheme of things, and one that is quickly maturing as Intel's engineers keep chugging on Red Bull (or drink of choice) and cranking out code.
In this case, most of the claimed FPS gains are more modest than Just Cause 4's, though many of them purportedly deliver double-digit performance boosts at 1080p, most at Medium in-game settings. That includes Palworld, the smash hit title that became just the second game in Steam's history to achieve over 2 million concurrent players.
Arc owners can install the latest GPU driver update through Intel's software, or head to the Arc GPU drivers download page to manually fetch and install it.
