Better DX9 Performance
Coming straight to the numbers, Intel claims that the average framerate has seen a 1.8x boost. In contrast, the 99th percentile FPS have improved by almost 2.3x. This can be the difference between you missing that crucial headshot and clutching the 1v5 for your team. The test bench for these results features the Intel Arc A770 paired with the i9-12900K, 32GB of DDR5-5600 memory, and the ROG MAXIMUS Z690 motherboard. Across the board, the starkest and most noticeable difference is present in CS:GO and League of Legends. This is important because Arc was heavily neglected due to subpar performance in these major e-sports titles. The frametime graph, which determines the fluidity shows a huge improvement with the new driver. As showcased, the previous drivers would lead to extremely high spikes or no framerate consistency. Besides, the average frametime level was really high, to begin with. The 99th Percentile FPS category sees a massive up to 2.26x jump on installing the new drivers. In short, a lower 99th Percentile FPS leads to more frequent stutters, often below the 60FPS threshold.
Conclusion
This is a massive improvement and a major step up by Intel. As we said before, these Arc drivers will only improve as time goes on. One key point is that DirectX 11 is still yet to be improved by Intel. Due to time concerns, these GPUs and drivers were mostly optimized for DirectX 12. However, that did bite Intel because a lot, and I mean a lot of games still use DX11. Either way, it is really nice to see that Intel is still in the GPU market and will not slow down anytime soon. After Arc, Intel will launch Battlemage which may possibly be teased at CES 2023. Source : Intel
