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

[Cyan]

As this thread probably has the most relevance to DXVK on here atm, worth nothing that a recent large update has been released:

DXVK 2.0

DXVK 2.0 Async

Lots of changes listed on their respective github pages. The most relevant improvement for users of DXVK on Windows though, is that it resolves a number of issues with it not working on some DX11 games. Two in particular I always couldn't get it working in DX11 mode with that really needed its improvements were two Batman games: Arkham City and Batman: Origins. They both now launch and run with DXVK in DX11, and as it improved them with DX9, it now significantly improves their framerate consistency in their DX11 modes as well.

While I can't say it's 100%, never-ever-ever deviating from 60fps lock as you still might experience the odd judder when flying across the city, Arkham City with DXVK now has now come as close as to eliminating the traversal stutters as possible. Running on my 3060 at 4K, MSAA 2X, all settings maxxed (exception tesselation at normal instead of high), physx high, running from a sata SSD - gliding/boosting across Arkham City is far smoother in DX11 under Vulkan than it was under native DX9.

Batman: Origins also had some frame pacing issues under DX11 when gliding that weren't tied to framerate, this also fixes them and it's pretty much a perfect 60fps lock now. If you're using a fixed refresh display, both games also benefit from Vulkan's vsync being triple-buffered by default, City and Origins always had a hard double-buffer implementation in DX11 which would plummet your framerate to 30fps if it ever dipped under 60, DXVK also fixes this so if you do drop due to GPU load, it will only drop in the single digits.

As always, I recommend using the Async version which really cuts down on those initial compilation stutters. DXVK 2.0 non-async is much better in this regard mind you than 1.10, but the async version is still better.

Recommended as well to delete your .dxvk.cache file if you're upgrading from a previous version, which is located in the same folder as where you placed the dll's alongside the game's exe if the game you're running is from a storefront other than Steam, or have Steam's shader caching disabled. If it's a Steam version and you have shader caching enabled, you can find dxvk's created pipeline caches in \<drive where game is installed>\SteamLibrary\Shadercache\GameID\dxvk_state_cache. I experienced some additional stutter when just dumping the 2.0 dll's files into a game that I had run with dxvk 1.10 which were cleared up once I started with a fresh cache.

Also, I've still encountered the issue with some games where they would launch the game's process, but it would remain stuck in task manager if Geforce Experience overlay was enabled, so keep that in mind.

Speaking of Arkham City btw, I was looking for its version of the Arkham Reborn texture pack/launcher, and eventually came into the developers discord. They've been plugging away at the Arkham City version of this for a while and apparently it's within weeks of release. So new launcher with ability to upgrade shadows/lod's, alongside a texture pack integrated - that means it's actually installable so you don't need to use texmod and wait 5+ minutes while it injects like with older texture mods for City. So if you're going to replay Arkham City anytime soon, keep an eye out for that.

whenever I complete Shadow of the Tomb Raider -I usually try to complete games that I enjoy 1 by 1- I gotta test it deeper (I tried it but haven't tested much).

A surprising take, or maybe not.

https://www.makeuseof.com/nvidia-rtx-3060-vs-intel-arc-a770-should-you-upgrade-to-intel/

Btw, the A770 16GB is on sale for 369€! -black friday-, for anyone interested. At that price, imho, it's a great deal.

https://www.pccomponentes.com/intel-arc-a770-16gb-gddr6

 

[Cyan]

found out an issue with HDR. I almost completed Shadow of the Tomb Raider, but when HDR is on, there is a point where the screen goes pitch black and it's an action packed scene where a little mistake gets you killed. It's a game breaking glitch. It turns out after some experimenting that it was caused by the HDR. HDR seems to need a little work atm, I reported to Intel. I dont want to play without HDR on, although well, I completed that part turning it off before turning it on again.

This HDR issue seems to extend to other games with little -at times not so liitle- but odd graphics glitches.

 

[Cyan]

I experienced another issue where Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition won't get past the intro on the Intel A770. In the end it's not a fault of the card, but a known issue that can happen. The fix is that you must delete the files intro.webm, credits.webm and legal.webm because for some reason they affect certain background processes when you are in DirectX 12 mode -necessary for HDR and raytracing-

 

[Putas]

Educational bug. Most games these days need the fix of removing all of the dozen splashscreens.

 

[Cyan]

Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition is one of the games that run really well on Intel ARC graphics cards. With global settings set to Utra, Raytracing on Ultra and Reflections set to fully raytraced -not hybrid-, at 1440p the game runs at 64 fps or so, like a 3060Ti. At native 4K with the same settings, the game runs at 32fps.

Alas the game doesn't feature XeSS, so I decided to drop the resolution to 1440p and the game didn't look good at all. I got used to Shadow of the Tomb Raider crispness with XeSS on and Metro Exodus looked too bland no matter what.

There is a solution, this excellent mod that works with many games -it says Cyberpunk but it works with a very respectable amount of games-:

FidelityFx Super Resolution 2.2 - FPS boost mod

Boost your FPS in Cyberpunk by replacing DLSS with FSR 2.2 which works on all GPUs.

www.nexusmods.com

Out of curiosity, I had tried FSR 2 before on Ghostwire Tokyo -which also supports DLSS and XeSS- and it didn't look bad to me. Maybe a bit weak when it comes to certain geometry like thin wires, but not bad at all.

So I enabled it just by copying 2 files in the main game's directory and enabling DLSS in the registry, and there you go.

The performance is excellent even if it's a wrapper, and the game looks really good now. I only found a couple of flaws like in the area where you first find a pack of those ugly creatures, before you reach the train, where FSR 2 seemed to be unable to keep up with the wires swinging fast, and the wires formed square shapes in a 90º degrees fashion -unnatural-. Also some slight aliasing in the scene after you sabotage the bad guys train and your spouse is talking to the people and sunlight hits the face, there is some aliasing in her face's contour.

Other than that, it's a win. Still I hope they are going to add XeSS support.

I found the reference to the mod in this Reddit discussion:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/y69099

 

[Cyan]

Educational bug. Most games these days need the fix of removing all of the dozen splashscreens.

worse yet is the fact that every time I launched the game, all the logos in the very first splash screen looked too pixelated and low resolution, and I wondered why. It turns out it was a video, so now I understand.

Once you delete those files, the game launches showing a black screen, so you just gotta wait -the game start seems timed- a bit, or like me press E until the main screen appears.

I found the solution in the video below. Of all the steps he mentions, I just performed the aforementioned deletion of those 3 video files. It's the Steam version, not pc gamepass this time, and also I don't have nor use MSi Afterburner -so no Rivatuner-.

 

[Jay]

Out of curiosity, I had tried FSR 2 before on Ghostwire Tokyo -which also supports DLSS and XeSS- and it didn't look bad to me. Maybe a bit weak when it comes to certain geometry like thin wires, but not bad at all.

Surprised this hasn't been made generic enough to also support XeSS.
Seems like you can pretty much mod between all three solutions.

 

[Flappy Pannus]

Speaking of Arkham City btw, I was looking for its version of the Arkham Reborn texture pack/launcher, and eventually came into the developers discord. They've been plugging away at the Arkham City version of this for a while and apparently it's within weeks of release. So new launcher with ability to upgrade shadows/lod's, alongside a texture pack integrated - that means it's actually installable so you don't need to use texmod and wait 5+ minutes while it injects like with older texture mods for City. So if you're going to replay Arkham City anytime soon, keep an eye out for that.

Arkham City Redux is out.

 

[Cyan]

Arkham City Redux is out.

the guy did an impressive job. Long life mods! I got Gotham Knights, although Arkham City is a much better game according to journalists and gamers alike, GK has XeSS support.

On a different note, to make the most of their announced support for FSR 2.1 and XeSS, the developers of Martha is Dead discounted the game on Steam today, and I purchased it because of said support.

I might share impressions when I play it, although it might take some time, 'cos the games I like I end up playing them 1 by 1 until completion, and I am playing Metro Exodus atm.

 

[Cyan]

it turns out that Martha is Dead is kinda special. First of all, the game has a new DirectX 12 + Raytracing launch setting, which they warn you it is a work in progress. I didn't know this game had RT support.

Secondly, the game has a default launch setting that says "recommended".

The most curious thing is that in the default launch setting you only get FSR 2.1 support. With FSR 2.1 on both Depth of Field and Motion Blur can't be enabled nor disabled -greyed out-. In fact they are disabled in game by default if you set the game to FSR 2.1.

XeSS is nowhere to be seen in the default recommended version. However, if you launch the DirectX 12 + RT version, then XeSS can be enabled. -or FSR 2.1 if you want to-

Also, both Depth of Field and Motion Blur can be enabled/disabled at will when XeSS is on. I noticed because I always disable Motion Blur and DoF.

Comparison between both versions FSR 2.1 Balanced and XeSS Quality, the equivalent settings.

Martha is Dead - FSR 2.1 Default version vs XeSS DX12 RT version - Imgsli

(there might be some differences below 'cos of dirt covering the camera, but you get the idea, RT is not fully implemented yet but there is also slight lighting differences)

https://imgsli.com/MTM0ODMy

Martha is Dead - FSR 2.1 Default version vs XeSS DX12 RT version - Imgsli

Martha is Dead - FSR 2.1 Default version vs XeSS DX12 RT version - Imgsli

Martha is Dead - FSR 2.1 Default version vs XeSS DX12 RT version - Imgsli

Martha is Dead - FSR 2.1 Default version vs XeSS DX12 RT version - Imgsli

 

[Cyan]

tried Crysis Remastered 2 and 3. I wanted to play my favourite of the Crysis series, which is Crysis 2.

The original weighted like 9GB, but Crysis 2 Remastered now weights a whopping 56GB (Crysis 3 is 19GB or so, dunno about the original). The presentation is night and day compared to the original Crysis 2 though. Plus Raytracing....

That being said, I am disappoint because the game doesn't have XeSS support, and the FSR 2.1 trick using a mod don't work either. It only supports DLSS. Until the game doesn't have XeSS support I am not playing it. The game is very demanding at 4K and it defaults to max settings on my card, but it's just too much. Dropping the resolution to 1440p make it looks so bland by comparison. Hope they add support for more reconstruction techniques, if not the game is going to be taking dust -at least I paid 24€ for both games because I already had Crysis 1 Remastered-.

 

[Cyan]

New Beta driver update for ARC

Download Intel Drivers and Software

Download new and previously released drivers including support software, bios, utilities, firmware and patches for Intel products.

www.intel.com

Intel cites eight games that benefit from improved performance, with Dirt 5 topping the list with an 8% improvement. Intel says the figure is delivered running at 1440p and on Ultra settings.

Other games that benefit from the new drivers include Chorus, Far Cry 6, Forza Horizon 5, Ghostwire Tokyo, Gotham Knights, Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy and Sniper Elite 5, with performance increases ranging from 3 to 7percent.
Meanwhile, Doom Eternal (Vulkan), Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege, Death Stranding Director's Cut, and Forza Horizon 5 all receive bug fixes.
Finally, four games receive extensive driver support: Sonic Frontiers, Marvel's Spiderman: Miles Morales, Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0, and Dysterra.

It doesn't seem like a panacea, but hey, one step first and another later is making its way.

 

[swaaye]

Cyan when are you going to pick up some VR gear and try it on the A770? Shouldn't be a huge investment if you get something second hand. I'm thinking you might enjoy free things like Resident Evil 2,3,7,8 VR or Half Life 1,2 VR. And Star Wars Squadrons is free next week. Lots of free.

 

[Cyan]

Cyan when are you going to pick up some VR gear and try it on the A770? Shouldn't be a huge investment if you get something second hand. I'm thinking you might enjoy free things like Resident Evil 2,3,7,8 VR or Half Life 1,2 VR. And Star Wars Squadrons is free next week. Lots of free.

do you have VR gear? Is it comfortable? I tried almost everything in gaming -even AR-, only VR is left to try. My only gripe with VR is that I usually suffer from migraines, and I fear it might not be for me.

I guess it might perform ok despite the fact that it is a mid tier GPU -maybe slightly better tier if you add rt into the mix-, and I am definitely curious. A guy who studied with me had a VR set -I think it was from Valve- for his GTX 970 although I never tried it, I've seen him holding it in his hands.

 

[swaaye]

do you have VR gear? Is it comfortable? I tried almost everything in gaming -even AR-, only VR is left to try. My only gripe with VR is that I usually suffer from migraines, and I fear it might not be for me.

I guess it might perform ok despite the fact that it is a mid tier GPU -maybe slightly better tier if you add rt into the mix-, and I am definitely curious. A guy who studied with me had a VR set -I think it was from Valve- for his GTX 970 although I never tried it, I've seen him holding it in his hands.

I do have a variety of VR gear. My biggest problem at first was motion sickness but you adapt with use.

The A770 should be powerful enough to run almost anything assuming it works at all which I haven't researched. I ran a 1080 Ti for years.

My suggestion is to try it first if you don't feel like spending any money. The immersion blows me away but I know other people don't care for it.

 

[Cyan]

I do have a variety of VR gear. My biggest problem at first was motion sickness but you adapt with use.

The A770 should be powerful enough to run almost anything assuming it works at all which I haven't researched. I ran a 1080 Ti for years.

My suggestion is to try it first if you don't feel like spending any money. The immersion blows me away but I know other people don't care for it.

does VRR work with VR? I mean, I had Adaptive Sync disabled and I didn't know but playing Metro Exodus while the framerate was solid, something felt amiss. Also I couldn't hit a thing when surrounded, I thought I might be getting stiff on the limbs or whatever, but it turned out that I had VRR disabled. It's night and day even if your framerate was stable before.

Btw, Resident Evil HD Remake works without DXVK -I was about to try again- nor anything else, out of the blue. Which means RE Zero and some other RE classic games are going to work.

EDIT, Resident Evil Zero too.

 

[swaaye]

does VRR work with VR? I mean, I had Adaptive Sync disabled and I didn't know but playing Metro Exodus while the framerate was solid, something felt amiss. Also I couldn't hit a thing when surrounded, I thought I might be getting stiff on the limbs or whatever, but it turned out that I had VRR disabled. It's night and day even if your framerate was stable before.

I'm not sure VRR is useful with VR. With VR it is critical to maintain a high frame rate. It is not only for fluidity but also minimizing latency of inputs.

VR does have something optional called reprojection. This is a low cost way to generate a "in between" frame using various data if the GPU can't quite keep up.

 

[Cyan]

puzzling stuff. All the games I knew of that didn't launch at all, Resident Evil 0, Resident Evil HD Remake, Resident Evil 6, Ultimate Capcom vs Marvel 3 and Resident Evil Revelations 2, now all of them run fine.

I suspect the culprit has to do with using the HDMI 2.1 port of the TV (a 4K 120Hz one (connected to a native HDMI 2.1 cable).

That's the only difference, along with the fact that I couldn't enable VRR on my TV via HDMI 2.1 and now that I am using my 1440p 165Hz 32" HDR500 monitor -which I really like to play on- using a Displayport 1.4 cable, I have Adaptive Sync and those games look and feel as they should.

Also there are no glitches in Resident Evil 4 anymore and didn't have to use DXVK to fix them. In fact, I didn't use DXVK at all this time.

Might it be how the GPU interacts with HDMI 2.1 the only cause? Sure I switched to the newest driver (but there is no indication of fixes of any type), but so did I when I had the computer connected to the TV and not to my monitor and the new driver didn't fix anything.

Which leaves with how a regular Displayport cable and Adaptive Sync work perfectly fine with this GPU, but not HDMI 2.1.

Screengrabs:

Resident Evil HD Remake

Resident Evil 0 Remake

Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3

Resident Evil 6

Resident Evil Revelations (RE Revelations 2 also works very well, but I couldn't get a picture)

Resident Evil 4 -which always launched and ran very well ever since I played it, but without DXVK it showed entire areas of black textures all around the scenery)

 

[Malo]

I suspect the culprit has to do with using the HDMI 2.1 port of the TV (a 4K 120Hz one (connected to a native HDMI 2.1 cable).

Is it a decent quality cable? How long is it?

 

[swaaye]

I would also consider the possibility of the TV bring janky. You never know what to expect with TV's connected to PC. I have a 4K HDR Vizio that always chroma subsamples unless I run a custom resolution.