News Intel Arc Graphics Performance Revisited: DX9 Steps Forward, DX12 Steps Back

[Admin]

Intel has made a lot of noise about its Arc driver ups and improvements, so we set about seeing where things stand. We tested the latest drivers against the launch drivers on all four current Arc graphics cards, across a 15-game test suite.

Intel Arc Graphics Performance Revisited: DX9 Steps Forward, DX12 Steps Back : Read more

 

[PlaneInTheSky]

The reason I stick with Nvidia is because Nvidia has native DX9.0 support. AMD and Intel do not.

It has nothing to do with performance for me.

There are so many older DX9.0 titles you can pick up for $1-$5. They always work great on Nvidia, on AMD it is hit or miss. It has nothing to do with performance, many are locked at 60fps anyway and the ones that aren't run at 100+ fps on potato hardware. It is about compatbility.

The Nvidia control panel allows you to set V-sync per game, per application, it works wonderfully on older DX9.0 titles also.

And it doesn't really matter to me that Intel gets better at DX9.0 performance. It is not about that, it is still not native support. Why would I pick a translation layer over actual native support Nvidia offers. There's no reason to pick Intel.

This whole "drivers are getting better, just wait" situation is the exact same reason I switched from AMD to Nvidia back in the day and never went back. I really loathed AMD driver issues and I now base my GPU decisions on driver quality first, and performance second. And Nvidia wins on this every single time. And I am not alone in this, AMD and Intel tend to offer more FPS per $, but Nvidia wins out on stability, compatibility, NVENC, CUDA, etc, and Nvidia dominates as a result.

 

[ohio_buckeye]

Except nvidia’s price gouging lately. Being realistic though amd or Intel would likely do the same if they could.

I’ll be interested to see Intel’s 2nd generation cards.

 

[digitalgriffin]

The reason I stick with Nvidia is because Nvidia has native DX9.0 support. AMD and Intel do not.

It has nothing to do with performance for me.

There are so many older DX9.0 titles you can pick up for $1-$5. They always work great on Nvidia, on AMD it is hit or miss. It has nothing to do with performance, many are locked at 60fps anyway and the ones that aren't run at 100+ fps on potato hardware. It is about compatbility.

The Nvidia control panel allows you to set V-sync per game, per application, it works wonderfully on older DX9.0 titles also.

And it doesn't really matter to me that Intel gets better at DX9.0 performance. It is not about that, it is still not native support. Why would I pick a translation layer over actual native support Nvidia offers. There's no reason to pick Intel.

This whole "drivers are getting better" situation is the exact same reason I switched from AMD to Nvidia back in the day and never went back. I really loathed AMD driver issues and I now base my GPU decisions on driver quality first, and performance second. And Nvidia wins on this every single time. And I am not alone in this, AMD and Intel tend to offer more FPS per $, but Nvidia wins out on stability, compatibility, NVENC, CUDA, etc, and Nvidia dominates as a result.

Non-native dx9 support? What have you been smoking? A large part of the whole article is talking about how dx9 emulation has been replaced by a real dx9 driver.

And AMD made some big gains in dx9 and openGL in the last two years. So AMD are a heck of a lot closer to Nvidia gen on gen with similar disparities compared to dx 12.

 

[kerberos_20]

The reason I stick with Nvidia is because Nvidia has native DX9.0 support. AMD and Intel do not.

source that amd doesnt have native dx9 support?

 

[PlaneInTheSky]

source that amd doesnt have native dx9 support?

Source: Microsoft

 

[KyaraM]

Except nvidia’s price gouging lately. Being realistic though amd or Intel would likely do the same if they could.

I’ll be interested to see Intel’s 2nd generation cards.

AMD already is doing it. The 7900XT is not that much better than the 4070Ti, and loses in RT, and costs more. And even without that, everyone complains about Nvidia prices, but AMD is right up there, too, selling for 1 grand and all.

 

[PlaneInTheSky]

And AMD made some big gains in dx9 and openGL in the last two years.

AMD already said they don't give a crap about all their DX9 driver issues and won't devote time to older games.

I am voting with my wallet, just like everyone else buying Nvidia. People sometimes ask why AMD (and now Intel) sell so poorly while offering similar or better FPS per $. You really don't need to read the tea leaves to discover why, it is because Nvidia has better compatibility, driver stability, support, NVENC, CUDA, etc.

Intel is off to a really poor start. AMD's driver issues have haunted them for years, and they will haunt Intel for years. Drivers matter at least as much as the hardware.

 

[kerberos_20]

Source: Microsoft

oh dude, that page is dated as hell...that is for legacy intel/amd hardware and pretty much for mobile devices, you could scroll down abit and see this

The last drivers for these devices are those available on WU and on the OEM/IHV’s websites; many date from Vista, and many of these final version drivers exhibit problems on Windows 8. In addition, nVidia has recently stated that they will not support their DX9 (Vista and older) mobile (notebook) parts for Windows 8. They continue to support their desktop DX9 parts

 

[kerberos_20]

AMD already said they don't give a crap about all their DX9 driver issues and won't devote time to older games.

I am voting with my wallet, just like everyone else buying Nvidia. People sometimes ask why AMD (and now Intel) sell so poorly while offering similar or better FPS per $. You really don't need to read the tea leaves to discover why, it is because Nvidia has better compatibility, driver stability, support, NVENC, CUDA, etc.

Intel is off to a really poor start. AMD's driver issues have haunted them for years, and they will haunt Intel for years. Drivers matter at least as much as the hardware.

yes there were issues when amd switched from crimson to adrenalin...fixed already btw

 

[PlaneInTheSky]

yes there were issues when amd switched from crimson to adrenalin...fixed already btw

Right, it's the same story every year. AMD has major driver issues every year, and every single year there are people coming out of the woodworks claiming that "everything is fixed now", and "it's improving".

GPU are very costly. They need to work and need to work perfectly. It would requires years, years, of perfect drivers for AMD to regain the trust of all the people who had stability issues, crashes and DX9.0 issues, for AMD to ever regain these users who are now used to Nvidia drivers, Nvidia that offers compability and stability.

And Intel better watch out if they think drivers are secondary to hardware, because AMD's reputation of having bad drivers haunts them in sales.

 

[-Fran-]

Source: Microsoft

I think you need to learn how to read... That's stating neither Intel or AMD will continue support of old DX9 hardware. I don't know why MS didn't mention it in that same article or a follow up. They do mention nVidia dropped mobile DX9 hardware support though.

As for drivers instability. I don't know what koolaid you've been drinking here, but nVidia has issues from time to time, just like AMD. Go check their list of issues or just go around their forums to see how many people have issues with their cards and setups. AMD issues do exist and they're very visible, but make no mistake nVidia has some really big ones under their belt as well.

For instance, check this document from their latest drivers and head down to Chapter 5:
https://us.download.nvidia.com/Windows/528.49/528.49-win11-win10-release-notes.pdf

Don't deceive yourself, as it only hurts you. If you have a preference due to what have you experienced, just acknowledge not everyone has had your same experiences.

Regards.

 

[kerberos_20]

Right, it's the same story every year. AMD has major driver issues every year, and every single year there are people coming out of the woodworks claiming that "everything is fixed now", and "it's improving".

GPU are very costly. They need to work and need to work perfectly. It would requires years, years, of perfect drivers for AMD to regain the trust of all the people who had stability issues, crashes and DX9.0 issues, for AMD to ever regain these users who are now used to Nvidia drivers, Nvidia that offers compability and stability.

And Intel better watch out if they think drivers are secondary to hardware, because it will take AMD years to ever recover from their bad driver repuation.

ive had few nvidia cards (geforce 2 mx, geforce 4 mx, 7800GS, 9600 GT, 9800GTX+, GTX 650, GTX 760, GTX 1060, GTX 1070ti)
compared to ati/amd (rage 128, 9800xt, HD 3850, RX 6800)
guess ive spent on nvidia drivers more time then with amd
anyway as for my last GPU switch from gtx 1070ti to RX 6800
first thing that really hit my eye:
with nvidia ive had some gradient color banding, with amd there is barely any
with nvidia i needed to use anisotrophic filtering x16 and it still looked blurry after clearly visible line where AF ends a bit far away from me , so some extra negative lod bias with inspector which then looked fine, but with amd tthere is no anisotrophic filtering settings, but guess what its not needed, LOD bias (legacy stuff from when hardware couldnt keep up) is gone...sooo amd looks way better (picture quality) then nvidia

and so far got just one game which crashes at ultra/high details (DX9 game C&C4 from EA)
but with nvidia? oh boy so many issues, you could search my nick on nvidia forums lol

 

[ohio_buckeye]

I will say one gripe with nvidia, seems like unless you pay through the noise they cut you on vram. For example a 4070ti, 12vram. Let’s be realistic that card likely could be be a 4K card with even 16 or 20gb of vram. On an 800 dollar card! At least the 7900xt is what 20gb so in a couple of years which card is better?

Example, my 3080 only has 10gb of vram, but new games like hogwharts legacy can use almost that on 1080p. I’d imagine there will be more new gaged that push those limits. More than likely my next gpu will be amd though I’ll give Intel a look if they keep improving.

 

[blppt]

Why would I pick a translation layer over actual native support Nvidia offers. There's no reason to pick Intel.

Well, for one reason, most of the time DXVK offers a performance improvement, sometimes a huge performance improvement in poorly threaded DX9 games. Nvidia's drivers benefit from using a DXVK wrapper in linux, and even windows, despite the DXVK libraries not being designed for native windows.

 

[Makaveli]

I don't know anyone playing DX9 games in 2023.

 

[brandonjclark]

I don't know anyone playing DX9 games in 2023.

That's what I was thinking, too. LOL! 😛

 

[blppt]

That's what I was thinking, too. LOL! 😛

Up until recently, Guild Wars 2 was DX9 only. And I think SWTOR is still DX9 only.

 

[digitalgriffin]

Source: Microsoft

You're misinterpreting. Windows 8 died before this. So support stopped. It was considered a dead os.

 

[PlaneInTheSky]

I don't know anyone playing DX9 games in 2023.

You either live on some deserted island or know nothing about gaming.

DX9 is used by the most played game currently on Steam. Counter Strike had over 1 million players at its peak today.

And DX9 is used by some of the most sold Indie games.

In fact, more people play DX 9 games today, than either DX11 or DX12 games.

This is a limited list of games starting with an A that require DX9 to play.

If I had to do an A to Z list, there would be thousands of games.

A Date in the Park
A Farewell to Dragons
A Fistful of Gun
A Golden Wake
A Hat in Time
A House of Many Doors
A Story about My Uncle
A Tale of Two Kingdoms
A Valley Without Wind
A Vampyre Story
A Virus Named TOM
A.R.E.S.: Extinction Agenda
A.R.E.S.: Extinction Agenda EX
A Reckless Disregard for Gravity
Abyss Odyssey
Acceleration of SUGURI 2
Ace Combat: Assault Horizon - Enhanced Edition
Aces Wild: Manic Brawling Action!
AChat
Act of War: Direct Action
Act of War: High Treason
Action Alien
Action Henk
Adam Wolfe
Adam's Venture: Origins
Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I Don't Know!
Adventure Time: Finn and Jake Investigations
Adventure Time: Finn and Jake's Epic Quest
Adventure Time: The Secret of the Nameless Kingdom
Adventures of Bertram Fiddle: Episode 1: A Dreadly Business
Adventures of Bertram Fiddle: Episode 2: A Bleaker Predicklement
Adventures of Heroes
Adventures of Pip
AFL Live
After the Inferno
Afterfall Reconquest Episode I
Afterfall: InSanity
Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders
Age of Empires II (2013)
Age of Empires III
Age of Empires Online
Age of Pirates 2: City of Abandoned Ships
Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales
Age of Wonders III
Agent Awesome
Aggelos
Agricultural Simulator 2011
Agricultural Simulator 2012
Agricultural Simulator 2013
Agricultural Simulator: Historical Farming
Ahnayro: The Dream World
AI War: Fleet Command
Airborne Troops: Countdown to D-Day
AirBuccaneers
Airline Tycoon 2
AironBall: The Floating Lands
Airscape: The Fall of Gravity
Aker Fern
Aladdin Chess Adventures
Alan Wake
Alan Wake's American Nightmare
Albedo: Eyes from Outer Space
Alchemia
Alekhine's Gun
Alias
Alice: Madness Returns
Alien Breed 2: Assault
Alien Breed 3: Descent
Alien Breed: Impact
Alien Rage - Unlimited
Alien Swarm
Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop
Aliens vs. Predator (2010)
Aliens: Colonial Marines
Allegiance
Alone in the Dark (2008)
Alone With You
Alpha Polaris
Alpha Prime
Alpha Protocol
Altered Beast (Genesis)
Alvin and the Chipmunks
Amazing World
Ameagari no Hanaby
America's Army
America's Army 3
America's Army: Proving Grounds
American McGee's Grimm
Amnesia: Memories
Amulet of Dreams
An Assassin in Orlandes
Anarchy Arcade
Anarchy Online
Ancient Wars: Sparta
Angels Fall First
Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures
Angry Video Game Nerd II: ASSimilation
Ankh - Anniversary Edition
Ankh: Battle of the Gods
Ankh: Heart of Osiris
Anna - Extended Edition
Anna's Quest
Anno 1404
Anno 1404: History Edition
Anno 1602: History Edition
Anno 1701
Anno 1701: History Edition
Anno 2070
Anomaly 2
Anomaly Defenders
Anomaly Korea
Anomaly Warzone Earth
Anomaly Warzone Earth Mobile Campaign
Another Metroid 2 Remake: Return of Samus
Another Perspective
Antenna
Antichamber
APB Reloaded
Apotheon
Aqua Kitty: Milk Mine Defender
AquaNox 2: Revelation
Arcania: Fall of Setarrif
Arcania: Gothic 4
Archaica: The Path of Light
Area 51 (2005)
Arma 2
Arma Tactics
Armies of Exigo
Armored Hunter Gunhound
Army Men: Sarge's War
Army of Tentacles: (Not) A Cthulhu Dating Sim
Art of Murder - Cards of Destiny
Art of Murder - Hunt for the Puppeteer
Artifact
Ascend (2015)
Ascend: Reborn
Ascension to the Throne
Ascension to the Throne: Valkyrie
Ashes Cricket 2009
Ashley Clark: Secret of the Ruby
Ashley Clark: The Secrets of the Ancient Temple
Assassin's Creed
Assassin's Creed II
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
Assassin's Creed: Revelations
Assault Android Cactus
Assault Suit Leynos
Astebreed
Asterix & Obelix XXL
Asterix & Obelix XXL 2: Mission: Las Vegum
Astrox: Hostile Space Excavation
Atari Vault
Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book
Attack Heroes
Audiosurf
Auditorium
Autobahn
Autobahn Police Simulator
Automobilista
Avencast: Rise of the Mage
Awesomenauts
AX:EL - Air XenoDawn
Axis & Allies (2004)
Azure Striker Gunvolt
Azure Striker Gunvolt 2

 

[Makaveli]

You either live on some deserted island or know nothing about gaming.

DX9 is used by the most played game currently on Steam. Counter Strike had over 1 million players at its peak today.

And DX9 is used by some of the most sold Indie games.

In fact, more people play DX 9 games today, than either DX11 or DX12 games.

This is a limited list of games starting with an A that require DX9 to play.

If I had to do an A to Z list, there would be thousands of games.

A Date in the Park
A Farewell to Dragons
A Fistful of Gun
A Golden Wake
A Hat in Time
A House of Many Doors
A Story about My Uncle
A Tale of Two Kingdoms
A Valley Without Wind
A Vampyre Story
A Virus Named TOM
A.R.E.S.: Extinction Agenda
A.R.E.S.: Extinction Agenda EX
A Reckless Disregard for Gravity
Abyss Odyssey
Acceleration of SUGURI 2
Ace Combat: Assault Horizon - Enhanced Edition
Aces Wild: Manic Brawling Action!
AChat
Act of War: Direct Action
Act of War: High Treason
Action Alien
Action Henk
Adam Wolfe
Adam's Venture: Origins
Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I Don't Know!
Adventure Time: Finn and Jake Investigations
Adventure Time: Finn and Jake's Epic Quest
Adventure Time: The Secret of the Nameless Kingdom
Adventures of Bertram Fiddle: Episode 1: A Dreadly Business
Adventures of Bertram Fiddle: Episode 2: A Bleaker Predicklement
Adventures of Heroes
Adventures of Pip
AFL Live
After the Inferno
Afterfall Reconquest Episode I
Afterfall: InSanity
Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders
Age of Empires II (2013)
Age of Empires III
Age of Empires Online
Age of Pirates 2: City of Abandoned Ships
Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales
Age of Wonders III
Agent Awesome
Aggelos
Agricultural Simulator 2011
Agricultural Simulator 2012
Agricultural Simulator 2013
Agricultural Simulator: Historical Farming
Ahnayro: The Dream World
AI War: Fleet Command
Airborne Troops: Countdown to D-Day
AirBuccaneers
Airline Tycoon 2
AironBall: The Floating Lands
Airscape: The Fall of Gravity
Aker Fern
Aladdin Chess Adventures
Alan Wake
Alan Wake's American Nightmare
Albedo: Eyes from Outer Space
Alchemia
Alekhine's Gun
Alias
Alice: Madness Returns
Alien Breed 2: Assault
Alien Breed 3: Descent
Alien Breed: Impact
Alien Rage - Unlimited
Alien Swarm
Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop
Aliens vs. Predator (2010)
Aliens: Colonial Marines
Allegiance
Alone in the Dark (2008)
Alone With You
Alpha Polaris
Alpha Prime
Alpha Protocol
Altered Beast (Genesis)
Alvin and the Chipmunks
Amazing World
Ameagari no Hanaby
America's Army
America's Army 3
America's Army: Proving Grounds
American McGee's Grimm
Amnesia: Memories
Amulet of Dreams
An Assassin in Orlandes
Anarchy Arcade
Anarchy Online
Ancient Wars: Sparta
Angels Fall First
Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures
Angry Video Game Nerd II: ASSimilation
Ankh - Anniversary Edition
Ankh: Battle of the Gods
Ankh: Heart of Osiris
Anna - Extended Edition
Anna's Quest
Anno 1404
Anno 1404: History Edition
Anno 1602: History Edition
Anno 1701
Anno 1701: History Edition
Anno 2070
Anomaly 2
Anomaly Defenders
Anomaly Korea
Anomaly Warzone Earth
Anomaly Warzone Earth Mobile Campaign
Another Metroid 2 Remake: Return of Samus
Another Perspective
Antenna
Antichamber
APB Reloaded
Apotheon
Aqua Kitty: Milk Mine Defender
AquaNox 2: Revelation
Arcania: Fall of Setarrif
Arcania: Gothic 4
Archaica: The Path of Light
Area 51 (2005)
Arma 2
Arma Tactics
Armies of Exigo
Armored Hunter Gunhound
Army Men: Sarge's War
Army of Tentacles: (Not) A Cthulhu Dating Sim
Art of Murder - Cards of Destiny
Art of Murder - Hunt for the Puppeteer
Artifact
Ascend (2015)
Ascend: Reborn
Ascension to the Throne
Ascension to the Throne: Valkyrie
Ashes Cricket 2009
Ashley Clark: Secret of the Ruby
Ashley Clark: The Secrets of the Ancient Temple
Assassin's Creed
Assassin's Creed II
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
Assassin's Creed: Revelations
Assault Android Cactus
Assault Suit Leynos
Astebreed
Asterix & Obelix XXL
Asterix & Obelix XXL 2: Mission: Las Vegum
Astrox: Hostile Space Excavation
Atari Vault
Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book
Attack Heroes
Audiosurf
Auditorium
Autobahn
Autobahn Police Simulator
Automobilista
Avencast: Rise of the Mage
Awesomenauts
AX:EL - Air XenoDawn
Axis & Allies (2004)
Azure Striker Gunvolt
Azure Striker Gunvolt 2

i've been gaming for about 30 years.

And I stand by my statement I don't personally know anyone that plays the list of games you have above. That doesn't mean people don't play them just my group of friends don't. They either have New gen consoles or high end pc's or both.

 

[shady28]

Right, it's the same story every year. AMD has major driver issues every year, and every single year there are people coming out of the woodworks claiming that "everything is fixed now", and "it's improving".

GPU are very costly. They need to work and need to work perfectly. It would requires years, years, of perfect drivers for AMD to regain the trust of all the people who had stability issues, crashes and DX9.0 issues, for AMD to ever regain these users who are now used to Nvidia drivers, Nvidia that offers compability and stability.

And Intel better watch out if they think drivers are secondary to hardware, because AMD's reputation of having bad drivers haunts them in sales.

Well, I have a 6700XT now. Last time I owned an ATI card before this was I think a 9800XT.

The drivers are definitely sub-par compared to Nvidia. They're not "bad", they simply are not as good. I had the drivers flat out break once due to a conflict between the AMD updater and Windows update. This was easy to fix.

Then I had issues with the GPU crashing while playing video in a browser window. This required me to turn off GPU acceleration on the browser.

Neither of these are show-stoppers, and AMD does give more hardware for the money.

But what you say is exactly right, and frankly it's not worth the $75 I saved vs a 3060 Ti. The problems are not earth shattering. I've probably spent 3-4 hours to look up how to fix this stuff in my first 6 months of ownership. More annoying were the random GPU lockups until I figured out what was initiating them (video), so I knew what to google for.

It had been years since I had to do squat about any bug on the Nvidia side though.

I sure would like Intel to make a worthy GPU.

 

[Co BIY]

Great Headline

Intel has made a lot of noise about its Arc driver ups and improvements, so we set about seeing where things stand. We tested the latest drivers against the launch drivers on all four current Arc graphics cards, across a 15-game test suite.

Intel Arc Graphics Performance Revisited: DX9 Steps Forward, DX12 Steps Back : Read more

Great Headline - Kudos to the author and editor!

 

[bolweval]

I don't know anyone playing DX9 games in 2023.

Team Fortress 2 is still my go to game. Not that i dont play the new games too, but Team Fortress 2 is simply fun.

 

[kerberos_20]

im playing deadspace 3 right now ¯\(ツ)/¯