Intel's New Arc GPU Driver Enables XeSS 3 Multi-Frame Generation To Boost Gaming FPS
Whatever your feelings on frame generation may be, it's undeniable that they are one method to achieve greater visual fluidity in games. For Panther Lake's integrated graphics hardware, it's entirely possible to reach 60 FPS with decent quality settings in modern games. However, many people have 120Hz or faster displays, and frame generation offers a way to hit a visual 120, 180, or even 240 FPS—frame rates which an integrated part could never hope to achieve otherwise.
XeSS 3 MFG, which is enabled in XeSS 2 games with a driver toggle, is currently only available on the Arc B370 and Arc B390 GPUs built into the new Core Ultra X300-series processors (such as the Core Ultra X9 388H), but Tom's Guide reports that the feature will make its way to the popular Arc B-series discrete GPUs next month. Because of slightly unclear messaging from Intel, we attempted to test XeSS 3 MFG on an Intel Arc B580, only to find that the toggle to enable it was not present—unsurprising given that it isn't supported right now.
That's not to say that there are no improvements or fixes for Arc B-series and A-series GPUs in the new driver, though. Most notably, the excellent Pragmata Sketchbook demo for Capcom's upcoming third-person shooter Pragmata should now be playable on Arc GPUs; before, it would crash on launch, which is a shame, because Pragmata is both gorgeous and a ton of fun. If you're a PC gamer, it's definitely worth a look. Additionally, the Intel Graphics Software should now show the correct variable refresh rate range.
Naturally, some issues remain too. Ghost of Tsushima, The Finals, No Man's Sky, Star Citizen, Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord, Call of Duty Black Ops 6, and Battlefield 6 all have problems of varying severity across myriad Arc GPU configurations. PugetBench can crash on Arc GPUs if you don't raise the timeout to 1500 seconds or higher. Topaz Video AI can have visual artifacts, and it seems like the Intel Graphics Software may crash if you attempt to "reset all settings" in Windows 10.
Given the quality of AI upscalers at this point, we're loathe to recommend gamers play games without upscaling. It still has its flaws, to be sure, but the ratio of image quality degradation to performance gained is very high in most situations. Particularly given that Intel's GPUs aren't the most powerful on the market overall, XeSS offers an easy way to bump performance in more demanding titles, like Black Myth Wukong and Star Wars Outlaws. Hopefully Intel can bring the latest XeSS tech to its discrete GPU faithful sooner than later.
You can pick up the new driver from Intel's download site; click here to read the release notes.
