Intel talks Arc updates and Battlemage after its big GPU driver fixes

pcinvasion.com:

Intel front man Tom Petersen recently appeared for an interview and open discussion with PCWorld about updates, fixes, and the future for the Arc graphics group.

The timing is no coincidence either. Intel kicked off a new campaign earlier this month to reset perceptions of its discrete GPUs. The company now advertises significantly improved drivers and enacted a price cut on the A750 to sweeten the deal and bring in more adopters. Suffice to say, it’s working. At least as far as public opinion goes.

The underlying question is whether it will be enough, because there’s a lot of lost ground Intel needs to make up for. Intel’s Arc Alchemist lineup did not launch on time, and ended up being one of the strangest rollouts we’ve ever seen.

Aside from the delays, public company statements repeatedly confirmed different product launches only for stock to be unavailable for weeks or months on end. This continued throughout 2022 until the A750 and A770 desktop cards were finally available in small quantities by fall.

Since then, more Arc stock has become available, but the lackluster launch reviews didn’t give much reason to purchase anything. If there’s one thing gamers will not stand for, it’s bad drivers. The Arc launch drivers were buggy and poorly optimized in many cases. DirectX 9 games were particularly troubled. However, Intel’s done an incredible amount since then to improve the experience. We’re only talking a matter of several months.

Image via Intel

It’s no secret that graphics drivers are very difficult to get right. Quality drivers are why Nvidia captured so much market share, and AMD struggled for years to catch up. Intel rightly deserves praise for what it’s done, even if the launch product clearly wasn’t ready.