German tech media PC Games Hardware recently conducted a hands-on gaming test of the Intel Arc Alchemist A380. It should be noted, however, that the test was not conducted in comparison with other graphics cards, but to show how Intel’s Arc drivers run in a list of 50 games (old and modern).
While Intel has been working hard to tune its Arc GPU performance in modern APIs such as DX12 and Vulkan, older games using DX11, DX12 and OpenGL APIs have not been well supported to date.
Lisa Pearce, vice president and general manager of Intel’s Visual Computing Division, said Intel is working to “optimize Arc GPU performance” for the APIs of DirectX 9 and 11. DirectX 11 and 12 are similar, but the updated APIs offer more optimizations and fixes not available in previous versions. DirectX 11 and 12 are similar, but the updated API offers more optimizations and fixes that were not available in previous versions. For some gamers, the plethora of older games is great because now gamers can try some of the award-winning games for themselves. However, for older games, users don’t need a powerful graphics card because the technology is less advanced.
A little over a week ago, Intel released a new driver that eliminated many of the graphics card and control panel compatibility inconsistencies that have not been well received in the PC community. Once again, Intel seems to be “catching up” with NVIDIA and AMD on their specific GPU technologies. With the help of comments and other feedback from the technical community, Intel is improving the compatibility that exists with the Arc A380.
