Intel has released its latest Arc and Iris Xe graphics drivers featuring support for Stormgate plus optimisations for others. This update also brings a handful of much-needed bug fixes.
Version 101.5768 WHQL adds support for Stormgat, a Sci-Fi strategy game that gets us as close as possible to what StarCraft 3 would have looked like. Not surprising since many members of the dev team are ancient Blizzard veterans. That said, I still prefer the art direction of the StarCraft series.
This update also brings optimisation and tweaks to a couple of games, namely Yakuza: Like a Dragon and Metro: Last Light Complete Edition. The former gets up to a 91% increase in average fps at 1080p Ultra settings, with 35% at 1440p. The latter on the other hand gets a lesser but welcome 23% increase at 1440p Very High settings, with 1080p benefiting by 20%.
The update also fixes a bunch of issues, such as graphical corruption in Dirt Rally and Blender, plus app instability/crashes in Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess and Sid Meier’s Civilization V. Good, since the latter is still quite popular among fans, with an average of 14,622 concurrent players on steam alone.
Lastly, Intel is aware of the bugs causing crashes in Enshrouded, Diablo IV, and Fortnite, so hopefully these get ironed out by the next update.
You can download the Arc and Iris Xe Graphics driver version 101.5768 WHQL from Intel’s website here and check the full changes below:
Gaming Highlights:
Intel Game On Driver support on Intel Arc A-series Graphics GPUs and Intel Core Ultra with built-in Intel Arc GPUs for:
Game performance improvements on Intel Arc A-Series Graphics Products versus Intel 31.0.101.5762 software driver for:
Yakuza: Like a Dragon (DX11)
- Up to 91% average FPS uplift at 1080p with Ultra settings
- Up to 35% average FPS uplift at 1440p with Ultra settings
Metro: Last Light Complete Edition (DX11)
- Up to 20% average FPS uplift at 1080p with High settings
- Up to 23% average FPS uplift at 1440p with Very High settings
Game performance improvements on Intel Core Ultra with built-in Intel Arc GPUs versus Intel 31.0.101.5762 software driver for:
Stormgate (DX11)
- Up to 12% average FPS uplift at 1080p with Medium settings with Temporal Super Resolution enabled
Fixed Issues:
Intel Arc A-Series Graphics Products:
- Dirt Rally (DX11) may exhibit corruptions on water bodies while running the benchmark.
- Sid Meier’s Civilization V (DX11) may experience an application crash during gameplay.
- Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess (DX12) may experience application instability on the first launch of the game.
- Blender 4.2 may exhibit corruptions and incomplete scenes while rendering.
Intel Core Ultra with built-in Intel Arc GPUs:
- Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess (DX12) may experience application instability on the first launch of the game.
Known Issues:
Intel Arc A-Series Graphics Products:
- Doom Eternal (VK) may exhibit intermittent flickering corruption in the game menu and during gameplay.
- Topaz Video AI may experience errors when exporting videos after using some models for video enhancements.
- Intel Core Ultra with built-in Intel Arc GPUs:
- Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection (DX12) may experience an application crash on loading to gameplay.
- Enshrouded (VK) may experience an application crash during gameplay.
- Diablo IV (DX12) may experience an application crash with ray tracing settings enabled.
- Fortnite game may crash while performing Alt + Tab operations
- SPECworkstation3.1 may exhibit system instability while running certain workloads.
- Procyon AI may experience an application crash while running benchmark with precision float32.
Intel Core Processor (12th-14th Generation) Products:
- Dragon Quest X Online (DX9) may experience sporadic application crashes during gameplay.
Intel Arc Control Known Issues:
- Arc Control Studio capture recording file may become corrupted when the mouse cursor is enabled during HDR capture.
- Schedule Updates for Drivers may not work intermittently.
- Arc Control Studio capture or stream may not stop intermittently when using the stop option. A workaround is to use Exit app option in Settings to stop the recording.