What happened just now? Intel is discontinuing game driver support for older iGPUs with immediate effect. Even while integrated graphics aren’t designed for serious performance, more modern models can still play many of the most played games right now, even the ones that Intel is reducing support for. Intel is switching to a legacy software paradigm for its older integrated graphics. Intel is further segmenting its graphics driver software.
Intel decided it was time to migrate Comet Lake, Kaby Lake, and Skylake CPU support to the legacy branch, beginning with the 31.0.101.3222 drivers. The drivers for integrated graphics solutions are those.
For the 11th and 12th generation Core and DG1 series, as well as for Arc GPUs and the 12th generation Core individually, Intel now will offer two major driver series. Future reporting from us will concentrate on the Arc branch. Hopefully Intel can combine all branches so as to cease confusing customers with out-of-date branches. Users may notice fewer driver updates as the legacy branch transitions the 6th to 10th Gen Core series. Even if there are serious defects or security issues that can be resolved with software, Intel should nonetheless offer essential solutions.
The others should expect updates to arrive every quarter, while newer iGPUs continue to receive support drivers when new games are released. Go to Settings > System > About in Windows to check your computer’s CPU. The first digit following the hyphen next to “processor” denotes the generation of your processor.
The Skylake CPUs’ return to legacy compatibility after seven years is expected, although the 10th generation chips are only two years old. A sizable fraction of iGPU users may experience decreased gaming performance as a result of the support drop.
All Intel iGPUs together made roughly about 7% of all polled computers in the June 2022 Steam hardware survey. Although many of the most played PC games aren’t available on Steam and are manageable by iGPUs, many of them are. Games like Valorant, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, League of Legends, Sid Meier’s Civilization 6, and Dota 2 are among them.
It’s difficult to predict how many customers this will affect given that even TechSpot’s test shows an Ice Lake iGPU achieving playable smooth framerate in some of those games, including Grand Theft Auto V and Rocket League.
