New Intel Arc driver improves frame rates by up to 174%, adds support for 'Horizon Forbidden West'

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Intel is still hitting hard with each new graphics driver release

Horizon Forbidden West PC
(Image credit: Nvidia)

Intel is back again with another massive performance-improving driver update for its Arc A-series graphics cards and Iris Xe iGPUs. Driver 31.0.101.5379 adds game support for Horizon Forbidden West, The Legend of the Condor Heroes, Dragon’s Dogma 2, Diablo IV's new ray tracing update, and driver optimizations for 16 titles in total. 

The majority of game optimizations apply to Arc A-series discrete graphics cards. However several games have also seen performance improvements with Arc integrated graphics currently found in Intel's Core Ultra Meteor Lake CPUs.

Games that have improved on Arc A-series graphics cards with this latest driver update are Assassin's Creed Origins (DX11), Conqueror's Blade (DX11), Detroit: Become Human (Vulkan), Dragon's Dogma 2 (DX12), Fortnite (DX12), God of War (DX11), Granblue Fantasy: Relink (DX11), Horizon Forbidden West (DX12), and Sons of the Forest (DX11).

The highest-performing games include Detroit: Become Human, Granblue Fantasy: Relink, and Conqueror's Blade. In Detroit: Become Human, performance has improved by 137% at 1080p Ultra settings and 172% at 1440p Ultra settings. In Grandblue Fantasy performance has improved by 174% at 1080p Ultra settings. Performance has improved by up to 54% at 1080p on the highest settings in Conqueror's Blade.

Games that have improved on Arc integrated graphics are Assassin’s Creed Origins (DX11), Conqueror's Blade (DX11), Dragon's Dogma 2 (DX12), Fortnite (DX12), God of War (DX11), Granblue Fantasy: Relink (DX11), and Sons of the Forest (DX11).

The performance improvements on Arc iGPUs aren't as high as on their discrete graphics card counterparts, but performance improvements are still quite good. For instance, in Assassin's Creed Origins performance has improved by 117% at 1080P medium settings. In Granblue Fantasy: Relink, performance has improved by 29% at 1080P standard settings. In Conqueror's Blade performance has improved by 27% at 1080P medium settings.

Here's how Intel lists the performance improvements on Arc A-Series graphics:

  • Assassin’s Creed Origins* (DX11) 
    • Up to 35% average FPS uplift at 1080p with Ultra High settings 
  • Conqueror’s Blade* (DX11) 
    • Up to 54% average FPS uplift at 1080p with Highest settings 
  • Detroit: Become Human* (VK) 
    • Up to 137% average FPS uplift at 1080p with Ultra settings 
    • Up to 172% average FPS uplift at 1440p with Ultra settings 
  • Dragon’s Dogma 2* (DX12) 
    • Up to 36% average FPS uplift at 1080p with High settings and Progressive Rendering Mode 
    • Up to 31% average FPS uplift at 1440p with High settings and Progressive Rendering Mode 
  • Fortnite* (DX12) 
    • Up to 6% average FPS uplift at 1080p with Epic settings 
    • Up to 6% average FPS uplift at 1440p with Epic settings 
  • God of War* (DX11) 
    • Up to 36% average FPS uplift at 1080p with Ultra settings 
  • Granblue Fantasy: Relink* (DX11) 
    • Up to 174% average FPS uplift at 1080p with Ultra settings 
  • Horizon Forbidden West* (DX12) 
    • Up to 6% average FPS uplift at 1440p with High settings 
  • Sons of the Forest* (DX11) 
    • Up to 8% average FPS uplift at 1080p with Ultra settings 
    • Up to 9% average FPS uplift at 1440p with High settings 

And here are improvements on Arc graphics on Intel Core Ultra mobile processors:

  • Assassin’s Creed Origins* (DX11) 
    • Up to 117% average FPS uplift at 1080p with Medium settings 
  • Conqueror’s Blade* (DX11) 
    • Up to 27% average FPS uplift at 1080p with Medium settings 
  • Dragon’s Dogma 2* (DX12) 
    • Up to 18% average FPS uplift at 1080p with Low settings and Progressive Rendering Mode 
  • Fortnite* (DX12) 
    • Up to 6% average FPS uplift at 1080p with High settings 
  • God of War* (DX11) 
    • Up to 17% average FPS uplift at 1080p with Original settings 
  • Granblue Fantasy: Relink* (DX11) 
    • Up to 29% average FPS uplift at 1080p with Standard settings 
  • Sons of the Forest* (DX11) 
    • Up to 5% average FPS uplift at 1080p with Low settings 
Aaron Klotz
Aaron Klotz
Contributing Writer

Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

11 Comments Comment from the forums
  • bit_user
    If you don't list the "before" or "after" frame rates, how is this useful as anything but a PR piece for Intel? Just because some game's frame rates improved a lot still doesn't mean it's even playable!

    @JarredWaltonGPU , don't you guys have "before" data on any of these games that could be used to add even one actual FPS datapoint to the article?
    Reply
  • Eximo
    That is the way Intel lists them, and without the exact settings and test system they used, quite difficult to replicate.
    Reply
  • Eximo
    To add, I don't mind ads for Intel graphics. We want them to succeed as a third player in the gaming graphics market.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    Eximo said:
    To add, I don't mind ads for Intel graphics. We want them to succeed as a third player in the gaming graphics market.
    I hope my comment isn't seen as anti-Intel. I'm not. I'm also not cynical enough to believe any good is accomplished by furthering a misleading narrative. If someone buys an Intel GPU, based on false expectations, the damage that could do to their brand/reputation is probably worse than the benefit of that 1 additional sale. People who buy their GPUs should do so eyes-open.

    I expect Toms to do better than parrot meaningless press releases, at least when it should be easy enough for them to do so. For a (potential) user, what would make this news meaningful is knowing what the actual frame rates are. There's none of that, here.

    The other key piece of information I'm lacking is whether any of these games have been prior targets of substantial optimizations (i.e. does this reflect Intel's driver getting even better, or is it just adding game-specific optimizations it didn't previously contain).
    Reply
  • TerryLaze
    bit_user said:
    I expect Toms to do better than parrot meaningless press releases,
    It's not a press release it's the driver notes from the intel driver page, the article links to that.
    Driver 31.0.101.5379 adds game support for
    Edit: For anybody interested in if they actually improve their drivers or not this should be interesting.
    Qp3BGu3vixkView: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp3BGu3vixk&ab_channel=GamersNexus
    Reply
  • bit_user
    TerryLaze said:
    For anybody interested in if they actually improve their drivers or not this should be interesting.
    Note that I didn't say they never improve their drivers. The question I raised was whether this constituted a fundamental improvement, or was just game-specific optimizations. And furthermore, did most of these games even have game-specific optimizations, or was it the first time for any of them (or, at least the games with the biggest improvements)? On that front, your reply was unhelpful.
    Reply
  • TerryLaze
    bit_user said:
    Note that I didn't say they never improve their drivers. The question I raised was whether this constituted a fundamental improvement, or was just game-specific optimizations. And furthermore, did most of these games even have game-specific optimizations, or was it the first time for any of them (or, at least the games with the biggest improvements)? On that front, your reply was unhelpful.
    Not everything I post is directed to you...
    You raised a question and I thought that this video might be of interest to some people.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    TerryLaze said:
    Not everything I post is directed to you...
    Sure, but since you wrote it in a reply to me, I think it was reasonable to conclude that it was meant as a direct response.

    TerryLaze said:
    You raised a question and I thought that this video might be of interest to some people.
    The question I raised was due to seeing a string of announcements touting big gains by Intel's drivers. Many of these gains are game-specific, but that's often not obvious. So, people could get the mistaken impression that round-after-round of driver releases with huge gains mean Intel has caught up to the competition.

    In contrast, if we're talking about game-specific optimizations, what AMD and Nvidia often do is provide driver updates on launch day of major titles. If Intel isn't doing game day drivers, then they're actually behind, but news articles like this somehow manage to spin that as a positive!
    That's why it's crucial that Toms provide actual FPS data, where possible. Without that, it can be hard to know what to make of such announcements.
    Reply
  • Shirley Marquez
    bit_user said:
    I hope my comment isn't seen as anti-Intel. I'm not. I'm also not cynical enough to believe any good is accomplished by furthering a misleading narrative. If someone buys an Intel GPU, based on false expectations, the damage that could do to their brand/reputation is probably worse than the benefit of that 1 additional sale. People who buy their GPUs should do so eyes-open.

    I expect Toms to do better than parrot meaningless press releases, at least when it should be easy enough for them to do so. For a (potential) user, what would make this news meaningful is knowing what the actual frame rates are. There's none of that, here.

    The other key piece of information I'm lacking is whether any of these games have been prior targets of substantial optimizations (i.e. does this reflect Intel's driver getting even better, or is it just adding game-specific optimizations it didn't previously contain).

    A big part of the improvement on older games is that they now have native DX9 support in the driver, rather than using a DX9 to DX12 translation layer. Native DX11 support is a work in progress.

    Alas, one of my favorite things to use my GPU for is based on OpenGL, and Intel's support for that API is still horrible. That limits the appeal of an ARC graphics card for me. ARC GPUs will also yield poor performance on older PCs because they need resizable BAR support to reach their full potential.
    Reply
  • thestryker
    bit_user said:
    If you don't list the "before" or "after" frame rates, how is this useful as anything but a PR piece for Intel? Just because some game's frame rates improved a lot still doesn't mean it's even playable!

    @JarredWaltonGPU , don't you guys have "before" data on any of these games that could be used to add even one actual FPS datapoint to the article?
    The only game listed I can think of that anyone I read uses is God of War, and this can give you an example of the current performance:

    https://www.techpowerup.com/review/sapphire-radeon-rx-7600-xt-pulse/20.html
    I too wish they talked about the existing performance as a lot of these are DX11 titles where Arc performance wildly varies from title to title. Assuming the Intel numbers are comparative it'd put Arc up in the area of the 6600 XT.
    Reply