Intel users are still waiting for the company to release the promised driver updates and GPUs for ARC Graphics

Intel promised customers a driver update for the Intel ARC graphics range more than a month ago. Intel built a separate branch code for the ARC and Iris drivers that…

By Nivedita Bangari

May 8, 2022

2 min read

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Intel promised customers a driver update for the Intel ARC graphics range more than a month ago. Intel built a separate branch code for the ARC and Iris drivers that was older than the primary support that they have given for most of their integrated graphics, as readers will recall.

The business had originally planned to release an updated driver by the end of April, including the ability to disable benchmarking improvements. Users would gain more validity in their UL 3D mark benchmark test scores if this update included the option to activate or deactivate the optimization. Due to UL’s rules, any UL 3D Mark tests that contain optimization would be declared invalid if it was missing. However, at this moment, the performance has improved by 15%.

By the end of April, we will add a UI option that allows users to toggle these benchmark specific optimizations on and off. This gives anyone the ability to see the top-level Intel Arc hardware potential of a fully optimized workload, as well as general benchmark performance. When the toggle is in place and the benchmark optimizations are disabled by default, the driver will be eligible for approval by UL.

— Lisa Pearce, VP and GM, Intel Visual Compute Group

The current graphics driver from Intel is ‘30.0.101.1330 (Latest)’ and is dated April 8, 2022, as shown in the image above

The company’s most recent beta version finished in 1934, while the primary branch, which ends in 1660, is still available. There are currently no plans to merge the main branch with the company’s ARC-specific branch, which could result in two separate versions that are incompatible.

NVIDIA has “jokingly” blasted companies who generate many code branches, which can easily confuse new and long-term consumers.

There is no current information on when Intel will release new drivers, although the company’s track record with drivers has been consistently delayed. A driver release for one of the Rocket Lake chips was missed, which did not help Intel’s public image.