Intel’s Latest Beta GPU Driver Comes With More Issues Than Improvements

Intel has just dropped a brand new update for its Arc GPU graphics drivers, but there’s something a little strange. While version 101.6299 Beta promises “Game On” optimisation for the highly anticipated Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 and STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl, Intel has neglected to tell us exactly how much of a performance boost users can expect… so I suspect it’s not a lot or they’d be shouting about it.

This release is light on bug fixes, focusing solely on prepping for the two new game releases. However, it seems to have introduced a fresh batch of issues, impacting popular titles like Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Doom Eternal, as well as creative applications such as Topaz Video AI and Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve Studio. The problems range from graphical glitches and crashes to performance hiccups. Not exactly looking great is it?

Adding to the complexity, the update also introduces specific issues for Intel’s Core Ultra Series 1 and 2 processors with built-in Arc GPUs, affecting professional tools like SPECworkstation3.1 and PugetBench for Davinci Resolve Studio.

So if you’re playing those two games, maybe try the update, but users might want to proceed with caution and check the full list of known issues before updating. It remains to be seen whether the potential gains outweigh the reported problems.

Improvements

Game Ready

• Flight Simulator 2024
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2: Heart of Chornobyl

Known Issues

Intel Arc A-Series Graphics Products:

• Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 (DX12) may exhibit darker than expected shadows in certain campaign scenarios.
• Doom Eternal (VK) may exhibit intermittent flickering corruption in the game menu and during gameplay.
• Topaz Video AI may experience errors when exporting videos after using some models for video enhancements.
• Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve Studio may experience lower than expected performance on certain workloads.
• Topaz Gigapixel AI may experience intermittent crash while exporting images.

Intel Core Ultra Series 1 with built-in Intel Arc GPUs:

• SPECworkstation3.1 may exhibit system instability while running certain workloads.
• PugetBench for Davinci Resolve Studio V19 may experience errors intermittently with benchmark preset set to Extended.
• Davinci Resolve Studio v19.0 may experience errors while rendering OpenVino test scenarios.

Intel Core Ultra Series 2 with built-in Intel Arc GPUs:

• Adobe Premiere Pro may exhibit corruption in the output video after performing 8K AV1 Encode.
• Star Wars Outlaws (DX12) may experience sporadic crash during gameplay.
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 (DX12) may exhibit texture corruption on water surfaces.

Intel Arc Control Known Issues

• Schedule Updates for Drivers may not work intermittently.
• Arc Control Studio capture or stream may not stop intermittently when using the stop option. A workaround is to use Exit app option inSettings to stop the recording.