Intel Preps for World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth With New Graphics Driver
Intel has announced a new version of its integrated graphics driver that supports Blizzard Entertainment’s highly anticipated World of Warcraft expansion, Battle for Azeroth.
The new driver, version 24.20.100.6226, adds support for the new MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) title, and Intel stated that players looking to dive into the World of Warcraft expansion are required to download the updated software. Intel even created a dedicated site to help gamers optimize their settings for Battle for Azeroth, but the tool still seems to be under construction at the time of this writing (all of our CPU searches resulted in “Coming Soon” pages). Presumably, the recommended settings will be there when the game launches on August 14.
The driver also comes loaded with game optimizations for Battle for Azeroth, in addition to Yakuza 0, Ys: Memories of Celceta, StoneHearth, Adventure Time: Pirates of the Enchiridion, The Walking Dead: The Final Season, This Is the Police 2 and Overcooked 2 with Intel UHD 620 Graphics or better. Other features include visual improvements with Dell HDR displays and various security and bug fixes.
Although an integrated graphics solution may not provide the best details and framerates for PC gaming (or Battle For Azeroth in particular), it’s interesting to see Intel increasing its focus on its graphics driver releases. With the company’s acquisition of former AMD graphics architect Raja Koduri and, with him, a rededication to entering the dedicated graphics market, Intel appears to be gearing up for a battle of its own against the likes of AMD and Nvidia, and it already seems to be keeping up with the pack with its game-ready graphics driver releases.
You can download the new Intel graphics driver from the company’s website.
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Derek Forrest was a contributing freelance writer for Tom's Hardware. He covered hardware news and reviews, focusing on gaming desktops and laptops.
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Martell1977 Sounds like Intel is trying to build a reputation for stable drivers, leading up to it's introduction of it's own GPU's. Considering they poached so many of AMD's lead guys, I expect Intel's GPU's to be somewhat similar to AMD's Vega offerings.Reply -
Twoboxer The web site won't accept "World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth" as a search term for drivers. It's only useful to allow you to pre-buy that game. If you try to DL drivers from that site, they want to install the "gameplay app" which presumably will push game purchase info to you. Better to get the drivers - if necessary - from the standard support sites.Reply -
pogsnet Interesting, this Intel driver was optimized to play the game by making sure all resolution and effects at its lowest or turned off to make it playable.Reply -
photonboy Twoboxer,Reply
The article link took me to the Intel site which allowed me to go to their software update page and the Intel driver link was right there. I even started to download it then cancelled since I don't use an Intel iGPU... most people with Intel drivers likely get auto updates via Microsoft Updates anyway.
Martell1977,
Intel has been making driver updates for various games for a long time so I wouldn't read too much into this. It's not even 100% certain that GAMING cards from Intel will happen though all the rumors seem to indicate this to be so.
I think for gaming Intel is in a bad spot though. I certainly wouldn't want to be an early adopter because it's certain there will be a massive list of games that have problems or run very inefficiently at first (and some may never work well).
AMD also has their CPU + GPU architecture in the consoles and with Ryzen CPU + GCN GPU architectures being optimized for so too will game engines start optimizing for this.
*having said all that I really think a 3rd company would be great for competition