Worst We've Tested: Broken Intel Arc GPU Drivers

by



LAST FEW DAYS to grab a Limited GN CyberSkeleton shirt! https://store.gamersnexus.net/products/limited-edition-foil-skeletal-cotton-t-shirt-with-pc-component-design – this helps directly fund the staff time to work on our videos, testing, and analysis AND gets you something awesome in return!

Intel’s Arc GPU driver software is completely and utterly broken. Although the drivers work ‘fine’ for some gaming, as we showed in our initial review, the actual driver suite is a buggy and embarrassing mess that Intel should be afraid to even upload for use. Many of its features, like Intel Smooth Sync (which we tested here) and Intel Arc Control cause artifacting, flickering, crashes, or are just otherwise useless. In this video, we’re reviewing the Intel Arc GPUs again, but this time for software rather than hardware. NVIDIA and AMD have nothing to be afraid of on this front (so far).

Watch our original Intel Arc A380 review here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La-dcK4h4ZU

Like our content? Please consider becoming our Patron to support us: http://www.patreon.com/gamersnexus

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 – DON’T DEMONETIZE US!
00:40 – Suffering for Your Entertainment
01:32 – Intel’s Embarrassment
04:00 – Huge List of Issues
09:30 – Intel Didn’t Even Use Its UI
11:15 – Arc Control is Broken
16:19 – Serious Issues
19:00 – Updating Breaks Things Again
20:22 – Conclusion: The Software is Infuriating

** Please like, comment, and subscribe for more! **

Links to Amazon and Newegg are typically monetized on our channel (affiliate links) and may return a commission of sales to us from the retailer. This is unrelated to the product manufacturer. Any advertisements or sponsorships are disclosed within the video (“this video is brought to you by”) and above the fold in the description. We do not ever produce paid content or “sponsored content” (meaning that the content is our idea and is not funded externally aside from whatever ad placement is in the beginning) and we do not ever charge manufacturers for coverage.

Follow us in these locations for more gaming and hardware updates:

t: http://www.twitter.com/gamersnexus
f: http://www.facebook.com/gamersnexus
w: http://www.gamersnexus.net/

Host, Writing, Test Lead: Steve Burke
Testing, Capture, Writing: Patrick Lathan
Video: Andrew Coleman

source

40 thoughts on “Worst We've Tested: Broken Intel Arc GPU Drivers”

  5. Software aside, because I know it's garbage, but isn't it Intel's position that it really only works with DirectX12? Why are you confused that DX9 and DX11 sucked? Intel told you it would suck. Am I missing something?

    Reply

  7. This is why I've been delaying building a new PLEX server, and switched to AMD for my new laptop. The Intel drivers for iGPUs has been terrible for a long time. Not surprised their dGPU drivers are terrible as well.

    Reply

  13. Based on the rumor mill and some financial reports, Intel might already be cancelling the GPU project.

    Seems things are fundamentally broken on a hardware level, not just driver level.

    Reply

  14. See just like with chips I do not believe intel is capable and most of their products once a change is made to the base product they are not fast to make it right, once the few intelligent people there fix things they can copy it over and over until the base product is changed once again.

    Reply

  15. As a software developer, I can't stress out how actually bad most of the companies treat the need, time and effort required to build a decent software. All these marketing and prodcut related pushes are so damn unnecesary. Intel had enough money and potential to start humble but decent and build upon that. Yet they chase something noone of us, customers, never care/cared about and thats dissapointing.

    Reply

  18. All they had to do is add a registry key that hid the broken/alpha capabilities and settings and just mention "To enable beta content, set the 'some_registry_entry' registry key to the value N".
    If you can manually edit the registry, you probably have the technical know-how to deal with the problems. If you don't know how to do that, then at least you have a functioning (?) GPU. You can tell shareholders that "Yes we have shipped cards with the capabilities we mentioned", You have a group of fairly technical people effectively beta-testing for you, and the guy that just wants to play Fortnight can play (maybe?). They may have been criticized for basically gating capabilities by using vague directions, but sometimes there is a good-ish reason for doing so.

    And I am surprised that Intel actually thought that they would be able to turn a profit so quickly in the GPU market. While they have good hardware engineers, for GPUs half the magic is in the software. This hardware/software split can result in hardware that is conceptually good for a doing strictly GPU types of things, but not as good at meeting the demands of drivers and their optimizations. An entry into a market is going to have problems, broken assumptions, and missteps. Therefore, this is an interative process with a product that has long development times in a rapidly changing market. If I had to guess, I would imagine that they would break even or make a profit by generation 3, and that is if they maintain their current momentum. However, I am actually impressed with the level they have attained with their first go-around.

    Even though I am currently an AMD fan/consumer, I sincerely hope they stay in the GPU market. Not only do we need to break what is seeming like duopoly, but a new entry comes with new insights and approaches. Look at how different Nvidia's and AMD's hardware approach is. Even their drivers and upscaling capabilities. I hope they stay in…

    Reply

  21. This happens if you release dedicated gpus without dedicated drivers to them. They should have developed the drivers around the arc series from the ground up. Now they are carrying all the crap and all the bugs from the badly maintaned old drivers over. Intel gpu drivers for the integrated gpus have been terrible for long time now, with similar issues.

    Reply

  23. Beginning to think Raj is a curse to whoever he works with. Ever since he left AMD drivers have been much more stable ive only seen a couple bad ones and now that hes at Intel and I see things like this it makes me wonder if him leaving AMD was a good thing.

    Reply

  25. Well… this is what happens when you allow to form a hierarchy of disconnected management, that just tries to present the best excel sheet results, by delegating as much development to underpayed developers in the east as possible.

    Reply

  30. Steve calls a 2% overclock pointless. How much of an uplift can a manual gpu overclock generally give?

    Only ever tried it 2 or 3 times myself but would call all my attempts pretty pointless in fps gains to be honest.

    Reply

  38. As a software dev: yes, bugs will pop up and having people use the software to help catch them is critical. However, that being said, these issues w/ Intel's drivers are much beyond that. The developers themselves are just incompetent and bit off way more than they could chew.

    Reply

Leave a Comment