Intel has published its Arc and Iris Graphics Driver 31.0.101.4514 that brings new game support alongside massive performance improvements in Assassin’s Creed Unity.
This driver improves Assassin’s Creed Unity (DX11) performance by up to 271 per cent at 1080p very high settings or 313 per cent at 1440p high compared to version 31.0.101.4502 WHQL. With such an uplift, the game must have been a slideshow before this update, so it’s nice to see Intel improving old and new games alike – some of these classic gems are still worth playing even now. Nevertheless, one can argue Intel’s previously horrific performance was totally unacceptable.
According to YouTuber GraphicArc testing, at 1440p high preset, framerate went from an unplayable 10fps, on average, to a smooth 70fps, which is much higher than Intel’s announced numbers. Nice!
But that’s not all. Deathloop (DX12) and F1 22 (DX12) also got some love. Now, the former should deliver up to 10 per cent higher framerate at 1080p ultra settings, with the latter taking things a bit further at 36 per cent using 1080p high settings.
These results were achieved using a Core i9-13900K paired with Intel’s Arc A750 Limited Edition and 32GB of DDR5-5600 memory.
Optimisations aside, version 4514 also adds support for AEW: Fight Forever and Layers of Fear, though no bug fixes this time around, which means that the system may still hang while waking up from sleep, for example.
Intel Arc and Iris Graphics Driver 31.0.101.4514 can be downloaded from Intel’s website, here.
The full list of changes can be found below:
Intel Game On Driver support on Intel Arc A-series Graphics for:
- AEW: Fight Forever
- Layers of Fear
Game performance improvements versus Intel 31.0.101.4502 software driver for:
- Assassin’s Creed Unity (DX11)
- Up to 271% uplift at 1080p with Very High settings
- Up to 313% uplift at 1440p with High settings
- F1 22 (DX12)
- Up to 36% uplift at 1080p with High settings
- Up to 20% uplift at 1440p with High settings
- Up to 10% uplift at 1080p with Ultra High settings and all Ray Tracing settings on
- Deathloop (DX12)
- Up to 10% uplift at 1080p with Ultra settings
- Up to 8% uplift at 1440p with Very High settings
Known Issues
Intel Arc Graphics Products:
- System may hang while waking up from sleep. May need to power cycle the system for recovery.
- GPU hardware acceleration may not be available for media playback and encode with some versions of Adobe Premiere Pro.
- Topaz Video AI may experience errors when using some models for video enhancement.
- Streaming Dota 2 using XSplit Broadcaster may exhibit corruption in Game Capture mode.
- Blender 3.6 may experience an application crash during render operations when Hardware Ray Tracing is enabled
Intel Iris Xe MAX Graphics Products:
Driver installation may not complete successfully on certain notebook systems with both Intel Iris Xe + Iris Xe MAX devices. A system reboot and re-installation of the graphics driver may be required for successful installation.
Intel Core Processor Products:
- Total War: Warhammer III (DX11) may experience an application crash when loading battle scenarios.
- Call of Duty Warzone 2.0 (DX12) may exhibit corruption on certain light sources such as fire.
- Conqueror’s Blade (DX12) may experience an application crash during game launch.
- A Plague Tale: Requiem (DX12) may experience application instability during gameplay.
Intel Arc Control Known Issues:
- Using Arc Control Studio capture with certain games may incorrectly generate multiple video files.
- With Intel Arc Control installed, systems may experience slightly higher than expected power consumption during system sleep or hibernate.
- May observe “could not stop Highlights” notification when stopping Auto-Game Highlights.
- The Camera on-screen preview may incorrectly persist when switching between Desktop and Overlay modes.
- The “Connector” type in the Display page may incorrectly show DP when using an HDMI display connection.
- Arc Control may become unresponsive after a driver upgrade. A workaround is to perform a clean driver installation using Display Driver Uninstaller.
