Intel Arc in 3DMark: Beta driver now officially improves benchmarks

The latest beta version of the Intel Graphics Driver officially improves the performance of Arc graphics cards such as the A770M, A550M, A380, A730M, A370M, and A350M as well as Iris solutions built into 3DMark with a feature built into the Arc Control user interface called Advanced Performance Improvements ( APO).

Intel introduces a long-awaited feature

As early as March 30, the manufacturer promised an updated custom driver for the Arc and Iris series graphics chips, which should contain the new functionality for standards and games now introduced. By the end of April, Intel, in the person of Lisa Pearce, Vice President and General Manager of the Visual Compute Group, promised a new graphics driver, which, for the first time, should also include an option to enable and disable the game and standard – specific improvements.

Intel 30.0.101.1743 Beta for the first time enables manual activation and deactivation of Advanced Performance Enhancements (APO) via the graphics driver user interface.

A new feature is now available in Arc Control which allows users to select and enable advanced application enhancements. The feature’s initial implementation only affects 3DMark Timespy and 3DMark Port Royale.

Integrated graphics performance, as well as discrete GPU game and content creation applications will not see any performance impact from disabling optimizations.

Intel Corporation

Having previously hidden the functionality in the driver without being visible to the user, it is now officially integrated and initially supports UL’s 3DMark Time Spy and Port Royal synthetic standards, but more standards and games must be followed.

3DMark results are officially announced

Using the latest graphics driver in beta, 3DMark scores for Arc graphics cards are officially recognized by UL for the first time and are therefore comparable to AMD and Nvidia graphics cards.

Advanced Performance Improvements (APO) must be disabled in order for results to be included in the standards set’s official database and declared legitimate. So Intel deactivates the APO if the driver is delivered. For this reason, Underwriters Laboratories has officially recognized the new graphics driver.

This driver contains improvements to UL’s 3DMark Time Spy and Port Royal standards, which are disabled by default. With performance improvements disabled by default, the driver has been UL approved.

Intel Corporation

Download on ComputerBase

As usual, the Intel Graphics Driver 30.0.101.1743 Beta can be downloaded from the ComputerBase download area just below this message. The final branches of the previous version are also available for download. The official release notes (PDF) provide more information.