Intel ARC GPUs, Xe Architecture for dGPUs [2022-]

[BrynS]

Cyan, thanks very much for sharing your experiences with the card in this thread. Good stuff!

Despite some of the issues with the translation wrapper and performance expectations -- as well as manufacturing cost concerns some have mentioned -- as an overall proposition in the price bracket it's (A770) been targeted at it seems like a pretty competent effort as Intel's first discrete GPU (Larrabee notwithstanding). I like the Intel styling on their own cards and the build quality seems decent. I'd be tempted to get one as a interim upgrade to my 980Ti if my system had BAR. As Intel's first discrete foray it's certainly more Kyro than Volari. Looking forward to the next generation and hopefully some positive disruption to the market.

I'm interested to see how the A770 performs in Darktide, although not expecting you to buy it to test if it's not your bag. The game is in "pre-order beta" now and launches on 30 November, so hopefully some A770 performance figures should emerge after that as I can't find anything online at the moment. I may be off the mark, but wonder whether the A770 may punch above it's weight at 1080p/1440p with high settings and RT on given 16GB of memory, it's pretty strong RT performance and with the game using a modern DX12 renderer and having quite a few RT effects I believe. I don't think there's any XeSS support at the moment, but DLSS and FSR are supported. There's a dev-blog on performance here.

There seems to be quite a lot of noise around the beta not being optimised in terms of performance, which may certainly be true. I've had quite a few crashes in recent days as well. On my pretty old X99 system I built in 2015 (5820K, 32GB, 980Ti) I'm able to get 50-60fps at 1440p on medium settings with FSR and no RT obviously. Performance tanks without FSR and I think just about everyone playing it is either using FSR or DLSS. This what it looks like at 4k with RT enabled on a high-end system:

 

[Cyan]

Cyan, thanks very much for sharing your experiences with the card in this thread. Good stuff!

Despite some of the issues with the translation wrapper and performance expectations -- as well as manufacturing cost concerns some have mentioned -- as an overall proposition in the price bracket it's (A770) been targeted at it seems like a pretty competent effort as Intel's first discrete GPU (Larrabee notwithstanding). I like the Intel styling on their own cards and the build quality seems decent. I'd be tempted to get one as a interim upgrade to my 980Ti if my system had BAR. As Intel's first discrete foray it's certainly more Kyro than Volari. Looking forward to the next generation and hopefully some positive disruption to the market.

I'm interested to see how the A770 performs in Darktide, although not expecting you to buy it to test if it's not your bag. The game is in "pre-order beta" now and launches on 30 November, so hopefully some A770 performance figures should emerge after that as I can't find anything online at the moment. I may be off the mark, but wonder whether the A770 may punch above it's weight at 1080p/1440p with high settings and RT on given 16GB of memory, it's pretty strong RT performance and with the game using a modern DX12 renderer and having quite a few RT effects I believe. I don't think there's any XeSS support at the moment, but DLSS and FSR are supported. There's a dev-blog on performance here.

There seems to be quite a lot of noise around the beta not being optimised in terms of performance, which may certainly be true. I've had quite a few crashes in recent days as well. On my pretty old X99 system I built in 2015 (5820K, 32GB, 980Ti) I'm able to get 50-60fps at 1440p on medium settings with FSR and no RT obviously. Performance tanks without FSR and I think just about everyone playing it is either using FSR or DLSS. This what it looks like at 4k with RT enabled on a high-end system:

well, I have been checking and I wouldn't mind to buy the game after investigating a bit. However, it seems to be an online game, focused on coop, and if it had a single player mode I'd buy it, but I barely play online. I usually have family mode enabled, so I can share my games with my best friend IRL -although he has his collection of games and it's not a Steam guy-.

That being said, this could be an example of a video which can give you realistic expectations. This is the A770 running Spiderman Miles Morales paired with some heavyweights.

Where it usually punches above its weight is at 1440p+ with RT enabled.

 

[BrynS]

Thanks for the video. Had a look at a few others on that channel and as you say the A770 does hold it's own at 1440p with RT enabled, which hopefully augurs well for future iterations of the architecture.

Yeah, it's a pity there isn't a single-player campaign in Darktide alongside the coop as the game looks great and the developers have really brought the Warhammer 40K universe to life. Because of the game mechanics and the frantic pace of the missions you don't really get a chance to stop and marvel at the art and level design.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Because of the game mechanics and the frantic pace of the missions you don't really get a chance to stop and marvel at the art and level design.

Just find a nice place to let the enemy down you and then admire the graphics while you wait for a teammate to revive/rescue you.

Regards,
SB

 

[Cyan]

there is an issue with Gotham Knights and RT. RT works fine when the team is in the Belfry, but once you go outside during the night patrols, you always get this message.

In this screengrab inside the Belfry, RT is enabled and the game doesn't have any issue.

https://imgur.com/Z2drUKH

 

[Cyan]

 

[swaaye]

So it's a bit faster now. Probably reaching the limit though eh. At least with the handful of trendy games these guys test.

Have they fixed anything that was totally fubar before? Have you had any problems with the install or uninstall for the drivers?

 

[Jay]

So it's a bit faster now. Probably reaching the limit though eh.

Have they fixed anything that was totally fubar before? Have you had any problems with the install or uninstall for the drivers?

From what I remember of the vid.
It's based on a selection of titles which is fine, but it obviously isn't taking into account the ones that have been improved.

So the "probably reaching it's limit" is invalid. May or may not be the case for those titles, I can't remember if they was pretty well performing ones anyway or not.

Drivers have a long way to go to be considered reaching its limit across range of titles.

 

[swaaye]

I'm just thinking it shouldn't take multiple months to reach saturation on optimization for a game. They should be approaching the best it can deliver.

If I had one I would be running all sorts of relatively unpopular VR, older and indie games to see what happens. Cyan did a lot of that too.

 

[Cyan]

So it's a bit faster now. Probably reaching the limit though eh. At least with the handful of trendy games these guys test.

Have they fixed anything that was totally fubar before? Have you had any problems with the install or uninstall for the drivers?

not everything. Actually they fixed some issues but others just appeared as if by magic. For instance, Martha is Dead has a experimental DX12 mode with RT and XeSS. The game recommends using the DX11 mode, but DX12 mode worked until a few days ago.

Right now, this message appears when you launch the game and it never runs.

That user name and C:\ route error it's a first for me. (it's an internal username in the game's code, not mine)

They also found out why games that don't run at all on my PC, like Fallout 3, when you click on "Start New Game" (the game crashes to the desktop no matter what). The cause is that MS uses D3D9on12 and they are working with MS to fix that, they could reproduce that issue.

Additionally, games that didn't launch at all before, on my TV, but run perfectly fine on my computer monitor, are now running on my TV too. The culprit seemed to be the TV not the drivers. If I enable Input Signal Plus -which enables HDR or Game Moode- by Samsung the games won't launch at all.

Still, I am sure those games would run well on my GTX 1080 with Input Signal Plus and HDR on without issue, so maybe it's not only a thing of the TV.

 

[swaaye]

not everything. Actually they fixed some issues but others just appeared as if by magic. For instance, Martha is Dead has a experimental DX12 mode with RT and XeSS. The game recommends using the DX11 mode, but DX12 mode worked until a few days ago.

Right now, this message appears when you launch the game and it never runs.

That user name and C:\ route error it's a first for me. (it's an internal username in the game's code, not mine)

They also found out why games that don't run at all on my PC, like Fallout 3, when you click on "Start New Game" (the game crashes to the desktop no matter what). The cause is that MS uses D3D9on12 and they are working with MS to fix that, they could reproduce that mistake.

Additionally, games that didn't launch at all before, on my TV, but run perfectly fine on my computer monitor, are now running on my TV too. The culprit seemed to be the TV not the drivers. If I enable Input Signal Plus -which enables HDR or Game Moode- by Samsung the games won't launch at all.

Still, I am sure those games would run well on my GTX 1080 with Input Signal Plus and HDR on without issue, so maybe it's not only a thing of the TV.

Interesting experiences.

Fallout 3 is a glitchy game. It has been troublesome for Intel GPUs forever. There are workarounds to get it running on their IGPs but those are for Intel's native D3D9. Bethesda is poor at maintaining their back catalog even though they keep selling the old games. They only recently finally removed the broken Games For Windows Live prerequisite.

 

[Cyan]

Cyan, thanks very much for sharing your experiences with the card in this thread. Good stuff!

Despite some of the issues with the translation wrapper and performance expectations -- as well as manufacturing cost concerns some have mentioned -- as an overall proposition in the price bracket it's (A770) been targeted at it seems like a pretty competent effort as Intel's first discrete GPU (Larrabee notwithstanding). I like the Intel styling on their own cards and the build quality seems decent. I'd be tempted to get one as a interim upgrade to my 980Ti if my system had BAR. As Intel's first discrete foray it's certainly more Kyro than Volari. Looking forward to the next generation and hopefully some positive disruption to the market.

I'm interested to see how the A770 performs in Darktide, although not expecting you to buy it to test if it's not your bag. The game is in "pre-order beta" now and launches on 30 November, so hopefully some A770 performance figures should emerge after that as I can't find anything online at the moment. I may be off the mark, but wonder whether the A770 may punch above it's weight at 1080p/1440p with high settings and RT on given 16GB of memory, it's pretty strong RT performance and with the game using a modern DX12 renderer and having quite a few RT effects I believe. I don't think there's any XeSS support at the moment, but DLSS and FSR are supported. There's a dev-blog on performance here.

There seems to be quite a lot of noise around the beta not being optimised in terms of performance, which may certainly be true. I've had quite a few crashes in recent days as well. On my pretty old X99 system I built in 2015 (5820K, 32GB, 980Ti) I'm able to get 50-60fps at 1440p on medium settings with FSR and no RT obviously. Performance tanks without FSR and I think just about everyone playing it is either using FSR or DLSS. This what it looks like at 4k with RT enabled on a high-end system:

turns out that the game can be played on PC Gamepass since yesterday. I tried, but the game crashes once you try to launch it from the settings menu. This message appears...

...., then it tries to load and a crash message is shown on screen.

 

[Cyan]

Cyan, thanks very much for sharing your experiences with the card in this thread. Good stuff!

Despite some of the issues with the translation wrapper and performance expectations -- as well as manufacturing cost concerns some have mentioned -- as an overall proposition in the price bracket it's (A770) been targeted at it seems like a pretty competent effort as Intel's first discrete GPU (Larrabee notwithstanding). I like the Intel styling on their own cards and the build quality seems decent. I'd be tempted to get one as a interim upgrade to my 980Ti if my system had BAR. As Intel's first discrete foray it's certainly more Kyro than Volari. Looking forward to the next generation and hopefully some positive disruption to the market.

I'm interested to see how the A770 performs in Darktide, although not expecting you to buy it to test if it's not your bag. The game is in "pre-order beta" now and launches on 30 November, so hopefully some A770 performance figures should emerge after that as I can't find anything online at the moment. I may be off the mark, but wonder whether the A770 may punch above it's weight at 1080p/1440p with high settings and RT on given 16GB of memory, it's pretty strong RT performance and with the game using a modern DX12 renderer and having quite a few RT effects I believe. I don't think there's any XeSS support at the moment, but DLSS and FSR are supported. There's a dev-blog on performance here.

There seems to be quite a lot of noise around the beta not being optimised in terms of performance, which may certainly be true. I've had quite a few crashes in recent days as well. On my pretty old X99 system I built in 2015 (5820K, 32GB, 980Ti) I'm able to get 50-60fps at 1440p on medium settings with FSR and no RT obviously. Performance tanks without FSR and I think just about everyone playing it is either using FSR or DLSS. This what it looks like at 4k with RT enabled on a high-end system:

I restarted the computer and it works after it recompiled the shaders.

The game runs at 40-50 fps in native 4K, most settings set to High, but not all -like DoF and stuff like that, which I try to remove-, Global Illumination (RT?) at High -the highest setting-.

I haven't tried Global Illumination at Low or Disabled.

This game probably has the worst FSR 2 implementation I've ever seen, it's a shimmering and jaggies fest. It looks truly horrible.

Native 4K -I haven't installed MSi Afterburner but the performance doesn't improve at all with either FSR 2 or FSR 1-.

FSR 2 Quality (you can't see the shimmering but the grates and gradings are the worst thing I've seen in months, IQ wise, compare to native 4K or even FSR 1 Ultra Quality). Still images don't make it justice at how bad it is.

FSR 1 Ultra Quality -not as bad as FSR2, but performance isn't better than native 4k)

 

[Cyan]

Cyan, thanks very much for sharing your experiences with the card in this thread. Good stuff!

Despite some of the issues with the translation wrapper and performance expectations -- as well as manufacturing cost concerns some have mentioned -- as an overall proposition in the price bracket it's (A770) been targeted at it seems like a pretty competent effort as Intel's first discrete GPU (Larrabee notwithstanding). I like the Intel styling on their own cards and the build quality seems decent. I'd be tempted to get one as a interim upgrade to my 980Ti if my system had BAR. As Intel's first discrete foray it's certainly more Kyro than Volari. Looking forward to the next generation and hopefully some positive disruption to the market.

I'm interested to see how the A770 performs in Darktide, although not expecting you to buy it to test if it's not your bag. The game is in "pre-order beta" now and launches on 30 November, so hopefully some A770 performance figures should emerge after that as I can't find anything online at the moment. I may be off the mark, but wonder whether the A770 may punch above it's weight at 1080p/1440p with high settings and RT on given 16GB of memory, it's pretty strong RT performance and with the game using a modern DX12 renderer and having quite a few RT effects I believe. I don't think there's any XeSS support at the moment, but DLSS and FSR are supported. There's a dev-blog on performance here.

There seems to be quite a lot of noise around the beta not being optimised in terms of performance, which may certainly be true. I've had quite a few crashes in recent days as well. On my pretty old X99 system I built in 2015 (5820K, 32GB, 980Ti) I'm able to get 50-60fps at 1440p on medium settings with FSR and no RT obviously. Performance tanks without FSR and I think just about everyone playing it is either using FSR or DLSS. This what it looks like at 4k with RT enabled on a high-end system:

numbers with MSi Afterburner. High settings and Global Illumination high.

4K Native -34 fps average- + TAA

FSR2 Quality -a shimmering fest, almost 50fps average-

FSR 1 Ultra Quality -53 fps average-

Native 1440p -55/56fps-

Native 1080p gives the exact same numbers as 1440p, it looks like the game is CPU limited on my computer.

Low settings 4K or low settings 1080p don't show much of a difference in performance but I didnt have MSi Afterburner when testing that. I had set the max framerate to 120fps and at Low settings + 1080p native I didn't see major improvements if I have to trust my own eyes tbh.

 

[BrynS]

Cyan, thanks for the Darktide updates.

Game stability still seems quite up and down. I didn't have many issues with the beta but since the launch have had a few sessions where I'm getting frequent DCs (5+ times per map) whereas other times it's stable for hours. It's great when it works although the DCs can be really disruptive and result in wipes on harder difficulties. The PC Gamepass version was using an older engine build than the version on Steam and I believe this was updated yesterday or the day before. The Xbox Gamepass version was expected to launch on 30 November but is still MIA. Lots of posts on the forums about the DCs and crashes with suggestions there are some underlaying engine/network issues still to be ironed out.

There should be some toggles in the video settings for RT that look like this:


It's possible you are CPU-limited although I would have expected higher fps at 1080p on a 3700x, so it may be an engine optimisation or driver issue with the A770. There's some benchmarks here with a i9 9900K (8/16, 3.6GHz base) which is pushing a RTX 4090 to 122fps at 1080p at max settings with no RT. The A770 getting 53 fps average at 4K with FSR 1.0 Ultra Quality seems pretty decent actually.

 

[Cyan]

Cyan, thanks for the Darktide updates.

Game stability still seems quite up and down. I didn't have many issues with the beta but since the launch have had a few sessions where I'm getting frequent DCs (5+ times per map) whereas other times it's stable for hours. It's great when it works although the DCs can be really disruptive and result in wipes on harder difficulties. The PC Gamepass version was using an older engine build than the version on Steam and I believe this was updated yesterday or the day before. The Xbox Gamepass version was expected to launch on 30 November but is still MIA. Lots of posts on the forums about the DCs and crashes with suggestions there are some underlaying engine/network issues still to be ironed out.

There should be some toggles in the video settings for RT that look like this:
View attachment 7677

It's possible you are CPU-limited although I would have expected higher fps at 1080p on a 3700x, so it may be an engine optimisation or driver issue with the A770. There's some benchmarks here with a i9 9900K (8/16, 3.6GHz base) which is pushing a RTX 4090 to 122fps at 1080p at max settings with no RT. The A770 getting 53 fps average at 4K with FSR 1.0 Ultra Quality seems pretty decent actually.

the new patch was published yesterday yes. I might check once again but I didn't see any Ray Tracing, nor Ray Traced Reflections nor RTX Global Illumination settings. There was a Global Illumination setting with Low and High options.

Additionally, I tried to play the game on my 1440p monitor, and the performance is more or less the same with FSR 1.0, 2.0, or just plain 1080p. It maxes out at about 55 to 57 fps, might give 720p a try, but I don't expect any better. The game looks okay but nothing out of the ordinary. It seems to be badly optimised, 122fps on a 4090 at 1080p with no RT sounds sad.

 

[Kaotik]

There's also new (beta) driver up which includes official support for Darktide

Intel® Arc™ & Iris® Xe Graphics - Windows*

This download installs Intel® Graphics Driver 32.0.101.6130/32.0.101.6048 for Intel® Arc™ A-Series Graphics, Intel® Iris® Xe Graphics, and Intel® Core™ Ultra Processors with Intel® Arc™ Graphics.

www.intel.com

 

[Cyan]

There's also new (beta) driver up which includes official support for Darktide

Intel® Arc™ & Iris® Xe Graphics - Windows*

This download installs Intel® Graphics Driver 32.0.101.6130/32.0.101.6048 for Intel® Arc™ A-Series Graphics, Intel® Iris® Xe Graphics, and Intel® Core™ Ultra Processors with Intel® Arc™ Graphics.

www.intel.com

will give it a try today's afternoon. That should probably add RT support to Warhammer 40K: Darktide because I haven't seen any option in that regard save for a rather odd Global Illumination setting.

From the link:

GAMING HIGHLIGHTS:

Intel® Game On Driver support on Intel® Arc™ A-series Graphics for:

• World of Warcraft: Dragonflight*
• Warhammer 40K: Darktide*
• Marvel’s Midnight Suns*
• The Callisto Protocol*
• Fortnite (Chapter 4/UE5.1)*

Intel® continues to improve the DirectX 9 game experience with Intel® Arc™ Graphics. This software package contains performance optimizations for:

• League of Legends*
• Counter-Strike: Global Offensive*
• Payday 2*
• Stellaris*
• Starcraft 2*
• Guild Wars 2*
• NiZhan*
• Moonlight Blade*

Intel® continues to improve the DirectX 11 and 12 game experience with Intel® Arc™ Graphics. This software package contains performance optimizations for:

• Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2* (DX12)
• Far Cry New Dawn* (DX11)
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider* (DX11)
• DOTA 2* (DX11)
• Dying Light 2* (DX12)

DEVELOPER HIGHLIGHTS:

• Support for Agility SDK 1.608.0 developer features:
• Enhanced Barriers for finer-grained control of barriers
• Support of Vulkan to D3D12 Dynamic Pipeline State

 

[Cyan]

Cyan, thanks for the Darktide updates.

Game stability still seems quite up and down. I didn't have many issues with the beta but since the launch have had a few sessions where I'm getting frequent DCs (5+ times per map) whereas other times it's stable for hours. It's great when it works although the DCs can be really disruptive and result in wipes on harder difficulties. The PC Gamepass version was using an older engine build than the version on Steam and I believe this was updated yesterday or the day before. The Xbox Gamepass version was expected to launch on 30 November but is still MIA. Lots of posts on the forums about the DCs and crashes with suggestions there are some underlaying engine/network issues still to be ironed out.

There should be some toggles in the video settings for RT that look like this:
View attachment 7677

It's possible you are CPU-limited although I would have expected higher fps at 1080p on a 3700x, so it may be an engine optimisation or driver issue with the A770. There's some benchmarks here with a i9 9900K (8/16, 3.6GHz base) which is pushing a RTX 4090 to 122fps at 1080p at max settings with no RT. The A770 getting 53 fps average at 4K with FSR 1.0 Ultra Quality seems pretty decent actually.

I checked once again after installing the new drivers, but there is no RTX Global Illumination setting, just a Global Illumination setting like before with High and Low options. Additionally, I didn't see any performance changes with the new drivers, but I haven't used MSi Afterburner to check, although I can tell you that the game is a tough cookie. Be it the drivers of the game's patch, they fixed FSR 2 implementation, now it looks very nice as expected.

 

[Cyan]

Okay, I played Doom Eternal at native 1440p of my monitor with RT on and High settings and I get up to 135-140fps. Iirc, there is a DLSS to FSR 2.1 mod for the game and I think I could achieve 165fps with that and RT enabled.

A Plague Tale: Requiem is also a game that I really want to try with RT when they add it, the game is gorgeous, like in this Steam image.

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1996813186792056517/0187FAC084F0ADDD45DF01E08FA85702CD87E39D/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false