Intel has rather unexpectedly become the first chipmaker to release certified graphics drivers for Windows 11. While these drivers are primarily aimed at integrated graphics solutions, it’s important to note that the majority of PCs use onboard graphics rather than expensive discrete solutions. The Intel Graphics Driver 30.0.100.9684 was released a couple of days back with support for the non-beta version of Windows 11 and Windows Display Driver Model 3.0 (WDDM 3.0), the DirectX 12 Shader Model 6.6 compiler, and F1 2021.
The reason behind this is rather straightforward. Intel Alder Lake systems slated to launch in October will come pre-loaded with Windows 11 and as such, the company is making sure that everything goes smoothly. In addition to this, the Xe-HPG (high-performance gaming) graphics cards are also primed for launch sometime in late 2021 or early 2022. The present graphics drivers are already being worked upon to support the upcoming dGPUs which are in essence an extension of the iGPUs.
At the same time, it’s worth noting that not all processors have released a driver for Windows 11 just yet. While the 11th Gen desktop, and 10th and 11th Gen mobile CPUs are all supported, the older Comet Lake parts with Gen 9.5 graphics have been left out for the time being, primarily due to lack of support for automatic HDR. While some games have native support for HDR, Auto HDR will work with DirectX 11 or DirectX 12 SDR-only games and intelligently expand the color/brightness range up to HDR.
You can download the Intel Graphics Drivers 30.0.100.9684 from the following link.
