Nexus gamers spit bile on “Alchemist” Intel Arc drivers

It’s no secret that the Intel Arc A380 graphics card isn’t a speed beast and Intel is open to new vulnerabilities, particularly on the driver side. At the time of writing, the exact release date of the more powerful Arc “Alchemist” products is shrouded in mystery, but roughly the same drivers that are now available will also come with these cards.

We went from thinking: “Okay, it’s not a bad start. It’s not really competitive but it’s borderline, which is fine for a company new to this. We went from this situation to: ‘What the hell is Intel doing?’ this is embarrassing’. The things that are released in the Arc Driver Package are bad. does not work. – Steve Burke, Gamers Nexus

Gamers Nexus now take out the band saw and cut the drivers along the knuckles of the fingers. Thus, the US publication joins the group of German reviewers who last week chose the piece of software as the Achilles heel of Intel’s graphics investment. Harsh words were welcomed by the German side and Steve Burke of Gamers Nexus wanted nothing worse, summing up the drivers’ situation as embarrassing from such a big company.

When the Arc A380 is installed in a computer with Windows, the drivers are installed automatically, but the ones provided by Intel are much more modern and feature-rich – at least on paper. Steve Burke tells us that trying to install software is a pain in the ass, as it can crash without warning and be impossible to restart. Reinstallation is the last common solution to such problems. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work well in this case, as leftover files keep showing up.

Furthermore, Burke lists a host of issues that range from having to connect a new monitor to provide an image upon previous surrender, to graphic artifacts when using features like Intel Smooth Sync. Even the overclocking functions are problematic, for example with the voltage control adjusting the millionth instead of the thousandth volt. Intel patched this up during the Gamers Nexus test period and the graphics card can then be overclocked by a paltry 2 percent.

Steve Burke also stresses that the sudden update of the voltage control is a sign that internal testing hasn’t been able to find all the anomalies, something that is especially evident when the buttons don’t work. The lack of quality control is part of it, but Burke is clear that the management and development of both software and hardware are also responsible for disastrous software.

Intel had to ship something eventually – and they did – and they also had to ship drivers with it. They have done that too. Both the hardware and the pure driver kernels, like in running games and stuff, running hardware, they work well enough that they can get some of that hand ripple “They’re new to this, so we’re going to give them a little time to learn.” Got on some of it.

The problem is that they are trying to stuff all these features into this, and it just doesn’t work. They have been caught. […] Launching features that didn’t have to be released yet, for the experience and stuff full of everything and anything Intel could add there, to say “Look, we’re delivering value. And look, we’re doing what AMD and Nvidia do. We have the same features, with the Intel branding on them.” This is competitive. We give you the same experience. They were supposed to stop the phrase “We do our best, to give you the essential experience,” not create a buggy mess. – Steve Burke, Gamers Nexus

Intel doesn’t have the same strong experience creating drivers for gaming graphics cards, so it’s possible to see between the fingers with some piano steps. Steve Burke explains that the big mistake is Intel trying to meet AMD and Nvidia on all fronts and filling the driver package with functionality that doesn’t work at all. He believes that the company should step back, apologize and explain that at first it only offers the simplest jobs, i.e. jobs that aren’t a “buggy mess”.

With reviews that have now found their way across the web, Intel has a solid list of issues to try and it remains to be seen if they impact the release of more Arc graphics cards. So far, the company has been relatively open in their communication about the Arc “Alchemist” and the childhood illnesses that come with it, but it remains to be seen if they take the bull by the horns and answer criticism in the same open manner.

Are vibrating drives keeping you away from Intel Arc, or are you interested in new hardware and ready to fix or wait for associated issues?