The Intel Arc Driver 31.0.101.3959 is the latest release aimed at improving performance for games that use DirectX 9. When Intel launched its Arc Alchemist graphics cards it was already known that the company had put a greater focus on DX12 games which meant older games ran at a decreased level of performance. Intel has continued to make improvements for games that use DX9, most notably Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and League of Legends which saw improvements by up to 77% and 50%, respectively, at 1080p. The Intel Arc A770 was used to showcase the new driver.
Average framerates for DX9 titles have almost doubled while 99th percentile FPS are up to over twice as fast with overall frametimes greatly reduced from the previous driver. The Intel Arc Driver 31.0.101.3959 can be downloaded here and is compatible with all current Intel Arc Alchemist graphics cards along with 11th-13th gen processors, and the Iris Xe (DG1) family.
We’ve tested the Intel Arc A770 graphics card in six of the most popular DirectX 9 games, comparing our October release driver (version v3490) with today’s first DX9-overhauling driver (v3959 and later). The new driver gives most games here a significant boost in performance, especially Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and League of Legends*.
List of tested DX9 titles
- League of Legends* (DX9)
- Up to 50% using 1080p with Very High settings
- Up to 52% using 1440p with Very High settings
- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive* (DX9)
- Up to 77% using 1080p with Very High settings & No MSAA
- Up to 77% using 1440p with Very High settings & No MSAA
- Up to 73% using 1080p with Very High settings & 8x MSAA
- Up to 46% using 1440p with Very High settings & 8x MSAA
- Payday 2* (DX9)
- Up to 8% using 1080p with Ultra settings
- Up to 4% using 1440p with Ultra settings
- Stellaris* (DX9)
- Up to 53% using 1080p with Ultra settings
- Up to 45% using 1440p with Ultra settings
- Guild Wars 2* (DX9)
- Up to 7% using 1080p with Best Appearance settings
- Up to 7% using 1440p with Best Appearance settings
- Starcraft 2* (DX9)
- Up to 43% using 1080p with Ultra settings
- Up to 30% using 1440p with Ultra settings
Discussion (4 replies)
Join Discussion →nice to see they are not giving up on older games.
I really thought heavily about putting an ARC GPU in my back up PC, but just bring myself to do it yet. It is nice to see them continue to improve on the drivers though and hopefully that trend continues.
Some nice gains. Being a new design/hardware I expect to see more optimizations coming in newer drivers and newer silicon as they iterate to new generations.
Not ready to replace my 6900xt with an Arc as yet, were I building a 'Nephew/Niece' system I might use one.
Arc GPUs on the way, can't wait to test this.