In a nutshell: Again in January, TechSpot speculated on why Intel’s GPU drivers had been round twice the dimensions of AMD’s and Nvidia’s, presumably stemming from much less time for optimization work. Regardless of the cause, Group Blue’s newest driver slims all the way down to grow to be solely barely bigger than Group Pink’s. The largest obtain is once more from Nvidia, which has not too long ago fattened up barely.
Intel’s newest graphics driver chopped its obtain dimension from 1.6GB to 604MB. The optimization brings the GPU newcomer’s software program nearer to its rivals with out compromising on options or efficiency.
The corporate credit the accomplishment to improved compression, indicating that the prior bloat was primarily resulting from an absence of expertise packaging devoted graphics drivers. Intel appears to be quickly adapting to a market dominated by two rivals who’ve been doing this for round 20 years.
The large dimension of Group Blue’s earlier drivers did not add up as a result of they needed to assist a much smaller variety of GPU fashions. Intel solely has one era available on the market, whereas Nvidia and AMD’s drivers should every assist a number of generations. Moreover, Nvidia likes to package deal its GeForce Expertise software program (which some may take into account bloatware) with its drivers. Intel’s inclusion of built-in graphics drivers additionally did not clarify the discrepancy, since AMD drivers additionally assist iGPUs and APUs.
All three corporations launched new drivers this week in preparation for the just-released Resident Evil 4 remake. Nvidia and AMD additionally spotlight The Final of Us Half 1 and the Diablo IV beta of their launch notes, whereas Intel launched its Diablo IV driver final week. Diablo IV’s free open beta runs by way of this weekend, whereas The Final of Us Half 1 arrives on PC subsequent week on Tuesday.
Intel additionally notes that it is nonetheless bettering Counter-Strike: International Offensive efficiency on Arc GPUs. Steam’s hottest recreation nonetheless makes use of DirectX 9, which Arc struggled with earlier than latest updates. It is unclear how the adjustments of Counter-Strike 2 replace will influence Arc, however different video games using the Supply 2 engine upgraded to DirectX 11.
In the meantime, Nvidia’s new drivers, ballooning to virtually 900MB, additionally assist Cyberpunk 2077’s upcoming experimental ray tracing “Overdrive” mode. The extra graphics preset introduces path tracing to the sport and can probably hammer GPUs when it arrives on April 11.