Intel’s Arc A350M and A370M launched (at least on paper) roughly a month back for budget and entry-level notebooks. Early reports from the media outlets indicate that these GPUs are still far from being the promised products. Immature drivers and lack of low-level game optimization lead to severe stuttering in multiple titles, even in ones that have been around for several years. Back in late March, Intel had promised to release the next major graphics driver update by April end but we’re yet to see any signs of it.
By the end of April, we will add a UI option that allows users to toggle these benchmark specific optimizations on and off.
This gives anyone the ability to see the top-level Intel Arc hardware potential of a fully optimized workload, as well as general benchmark performance.
When the toggle is in place and the benchmark optimizations are disabled by default, the driver will be eligible for approval by UL.
Lisa Pearce, Vice President and General Manager for the Visual Compute Group
Intel VP and GM of the Visual Compute Group Lisa Pearce had stated that a new driver would be released by the end of April to address benchmark-specific optimizations that distort benchmarks and invalidate them. These optimizations improve the performance of synthetic benchmarks such as 3DMark but also invalidate them, rendering them useless.
The promised driver release is supposed to add a toggle to disable benchmark optimizations in the graphics control panel. The latest driver was released on the 8th of April while the current beta landed on the 27th of April. Neither includes the toggle.
Even as Intel plans to release the higher-end Arc A770M and A730M mobility SKUs later this quarter, and the desktop parts the next, the chipmaker’s graphics drivers remain in a pathetic state, unfit to support mainstream gaming.
Processors, PC gaming, and the past. I have written about computer hardware for over seven years with over 5000 published articles. I started during engineering college and haven't stopped since. On the side, I play RPGs like Baldur's Gate, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Divinity, and Fallout. Contact: areejs12@hardwaretimes.com.
