Intel’s Arc Alchemist GPUs, the entry of a processor developing giant into the discrete Graphics Card segment, have seen more ups and downs than we could’ve imagined. Lack of official details, irrelevant benchmarks, and even immature drivers are just sinking this ship below the acceptable standards of Intel.
Intel had sent its GPUs to reviewers for early testing, which generally helps them get details on issues, bugs, and any adjustments that the company needs to make. Reviewers were not only facing lower performance issues on A380 GPU compared to competing products but also serious problems with the drivers themselves, including Arc Control.
A single review from Gamers Nexus of A380 GPU revealed 43 issues. Four of those issues were fixed by driver updates by the end of July. Since then, another 21 UI issues were corrected in Intel’s driver release on August 19th.
This was covered in a blog post by Lisa Pearce, the Vice President of Intel’s Visual Computing Group. The blog was posted on Intel’s official website and explained some recent development regarding Arc graphics software development.
We appreciate the feedback we are getting in early reviews of our Arc software stack. And it has been bumpy. We have received frank feedback from press during recent reviews, and we have taken it to heart. For example, we filed 43 issues with our engineering team from a review of the A380 by Gamers Nexus.
Lisa Pearce
The blog post covers topics such as DirectX11 performance or the fact that Arc GPUs use the DirectX9 mapping layer instead of supporting it natively. You can also check out the Gamers Nexus review video below.
Intel is facing issues with older graphics APIs for which Arc architecture has not been optimized, meaning lower performance in some of the most popular titles, which Intel has classified in the 3rd tier according to its 3-tier system, that does not use modern APIs such as Vulkan or DirectX12.
Some significant features like Variable Refresh Rate and ResizableBAR support were also tested, but even they had numerous issues even with the current Arc drivers. However, this wasn’t even where the disappointment for reviewers started.
Considering that A380 had only launched in some parts of the world, reviewers from the EU and US had to ship in samples from far away rather than Intel providing them. You’d expect Intel to be really confident of its first-ever discrete GPUs if this is happening, but it turns out they should focus on this more.
Furthermore, Intel plans to consolidate Arc software into one package instead of downloading it after the driver is installed. This will result in a less problematic installation of Arc Control alongside core GPU drivers.
We are continuing to learn what it will take for us to be successful. Some of the issues were related to our installer and how it downloaded unique components after initial installation. This allows us to have a smaller initial download to get users started quicker.
But unexpected failures are causing that process to be unreliable, and later this year, we will be moving to a combined package that is downloaded and installed all at once. No more installer issues.
Lisa Pearce
It seems like Intel has lots of real work to do. However, we should take things easy on them, considering it’s their first time working on dGPUs, and at least they are taking reviewers seriously.
We still do not know the launch date of Arc Alchemist GPUs, besides the information that they will launch in the second half of this quarter.
About Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, in Silicon Valley. It is the world’s largest semiconductor chip manufacturer on the basis of revenue, and is the developer of the x86 series of microprocessors – the processors found in most personal computers (PCs).
Incorporated in Delaware, Intel ranked No. 46 in the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.
No Comments on Intel Arc A380 GPU gets 43 Driver Issues from Just One Gamers Nexus Review