Info Intel ARC Alchemist owners thread. Now 75 games tested, retested, and counting. Includes productivity experiences. Feel free to add your results.

[DAPUNISHER]

System Specs:
Ryzen 7 5800X3D
DeepCool Castle 120mm AIO
2x16GB CL18 4000 MT/s
Gigabyte B550i AORUS PRO AX (ReBar enabled)
2TB Silicon Image UD90 gen 4 nvme
EVGA SFX 650W gold full modular
CoolerMaster NR200 mini-ITX case
Intel ARC A750 LE (Always the latest driver)
ASRock Challenger A380
MSI Optix 27" 1080p 165Hz (Most test performed on 55" 1080p 60Hz TV)
WIn11 pro (Always fully updated)

Horizon Zero Dawn canned bench = passed. CPU limited with a 5600X3D so may not be able to managed a 60fps average at 1080 and 1440 with a weaker CPU.

Outer Worlds: Spacer's Choice Edition = Passed. 1080 high (foliage medium) mostly 60fps. Drops into 50s with long draw distances. Feels smooth making it a good experience.

Brutal Legend = Passed. 1080 max locked 60.

Ghostbusters Remastered = Passed. Hauntingly good. 1080 max settings. I consider this the 3rd movie, and better than Ghostbusters 2. Great game and a must play if you like the OG movie.

Thief 2 The Metal Age (DX9c) = Passed. It'll steal hours of your time.

Costume Quest 2 = Works a treat.

Cat Quest = Purrfect.

Super Meatboy Forever = Perfect. You'll have no beef with this game.

Halo 2 Anniversary = Playable, but some frame pacing issues. Could be better, but still no issues getting through levels.

Dying Light Enhanced Edition (1080 max settings aside from Nvidia gameworks) = Passed. Plays perfect.

Stubbs the Zombie: Rebel without a Pulse = Passed.

Invincible Presents: Adam Eve = Passed.

Nightingale = Passed. A750 is fully playable with Quality preset and Quality XeSS. Not getting 60fps locked, often in 30s but smooth and enough FPS for a game like this. Any lower preset or XeSS cost too much in visual quality to make the extra FPS worth it.

Far Cry 3 = Update: Working great DX11 1080p medium settings in windowed mode.

Dishonored: Definitive Edition = Passed. 1080 max settings locked 60fps not even breaking a sweat. Under 30% usage most of the time.

Bioshock Remastered = Passed.

Bioshock 2 Remastered = Passed

Bioshock Infinite Complete Edition = Passed. Not many graphics settings in these titles, but at 1080 max they are all high refresh experiences without breaking a sweat.

GZDoom = passed. Both Vulkan and OpenGL run flawlessly with the default 200fps frame cap.

Borderlands 3 = Passed. DX12 mode,1080p high preset, locked 60 mostly with a few dips.

Tom Clancy's The Division = Passed. Tested on A380 1080p MAX settings including sliders. Doesn't hold locked 60 100% of time but no frame pacing issues. First time playing and it's a great experience on this $100 card that came with 2 games worth nearly as much as it cost. EDIT: Used DX12 mode.

Tested on A380 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge = Passed. Plays perfect.

Tested on A380 - Warhammer 40K: Space Marines = Passed. Locked 60 max settings and does not break a sweat. Never exceeds 20 watts. Played approximately 2hrs with flatline frame graph.

Spiderman Remastered = Passed. Mix of high and med. settings. RT reflections on high distance 6, XeSS on Ultra Quality. TAA and MSAA must be broken with these drivers. Both provide unstable images. XeSS is a big improvement over them. Stuff like brick walls and windows look much better and remain stable.

Halo Reach = FIXED. Great time now with latest drivers. (03/19/24)

Assassins Creed Mirage = Passes big time. 1080 Max settings averages over 70fps in Anbar where the game opens. Played 45 minutes, ran the built-in bench. Best optimized game I have played since Dead Island 2. I'll add more details in its own post.

Forespoken = Passed

Starfield = 2/11/2024 XeSS and patches = 👍Not getting 60 locked all the time but fully playable.

AC:Black Flag. Passed. This game has issues when enabling ambient occlusion and MSAA. It's like the shadow map floats around in front of you or something. It's a weird one. I experienced this issue using AMD, it is not an ARC problem. My guess is it is due to the settings being proprietary Nvidia features. Game is fine with these features turned off.

Dirt 4 = Passed

Arkham City = Passed

Arkham Origins = Passed

Arkham Knight = PASSED - Fixed by adding 64bit DXVK d3d11 and dxgi DLLs to same folder as game .exe

Call of Duty 2 = PASSED - Fixed by adding 32bit DXVK d3d9 and dxgi DLLs to same folder as game .exe

Fallout 4 - Passed

Fallout New Vegas = PASSED - Fixed by adding 32bit DXVK d3d9 and dxgi DLLs to same folder as game .exe

Original version of Mafia= Passed

Halo 3 from the MC collections = Passed

Mad Max = Passed

Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor = Passed. I played this for 3.5hrs. Killing orcs is addictive.

Days Gone - Passed

Crysis = FIXED. 1080 max settings full screen is a high refresh experience with some hitching here and there. And there is a CTD on checkpoint saves once in a while.

Star Trek: Elite Force 2 (OpenGL) = Passed

Spiderman: Miles Morales = Passed.

Delta Force: Black Hawk Down (DX8.1) - Fail. All troubleshooting steps taken, no dice.

Fallout 3- Pass. Another title that requires adding the DXVK files to the game folder where the .exe is.

Gears 5 - Pass. 1080 everything maxed locked 60.

F.E.A.R. Platinum - Passed

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed - Passed

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II - Passed

Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga - Passed

Stalker Call: of Pripyat - Passed

Assassins Creed: Odyssey - Passed, but with unacceptable performance in DX11. Vulcan performance is much better. Sometimes more than double the fps better.

Cyberpunk 2077 - Passed. XeSS looks much better than FSR in this one. The ghosting behind cars with FSR is - jumps out at you bad. Impressive RT performance for a $200 card.

Watch Dogs 2 - FIXED. Now able to run 1080 Ultra locked 60 most of the time. This is a big improvement from previous results. Great job ARC driver team.

Assassins Creed: Syndicate - Passed. Yet again, Vulcan is a must for locked 60 fps performance or better. DX11 radically underperforms to the point of unplayable.

Witcher 3 enhanced - Passed. Ray tracing and XeSS combine for a great experience.

GTA 5 - Pass. Can't do max distance scaling or high MSAA and keep locked 1080 60. Other than that plays great. I recommend a frame cap because in the menu, trying to change settings it hits the engine's frame cap and it keeps hitching. Super annoying.

Tomb Raider 2013 - DX11 Fail. DX in these older games is largely a waste of time. Can't hold 1080 60 maxed settings. First village I made it to, it tanked to the 40s with bad pacing. 32bit DXVK Vulcan is great, no issues staying locked 60 in the same areas.

Assassin's Creed: Origins -DX fail. DXVK Pass. Same as the other AC games.

Orange Box games -
Half Life 2 - Passed
HL2 Episode 1 - Passed
HL2 Episode 2- Passed
Portal - Passed

Gotham Knights - Passed. See post #88 if you want details about the experience.

Games played/tested by @Pohemi -

"Baldur's Gate 3 tested @ 4K (played approx an hour) with medium-high settings. Ran flawlessly, but I didn't attempt to crank it up to highest settings. I can't imagine it would have choked, but IDK."

"I'm mostly playing WoW and The Division 2, both at 4K and medium-high to high settings. If I drop the res to 1440p, I can set it to high/ultra. No stutter or hang-ups, even in WoW's 25-man raids with a ton happening onscreen."

CS:GO testing by @Dayman1225

@Hulk has results for Deeplink using Topaz in this post - https://forums.anandtech.com/thread...arfield-is-playable-now.2612941/post-41110953

Update from Hulk - "It seems as though the latest driver release fixed a lot of issues with my Arc 750 and Topaz Video AI. Before this release only 1 older driver would "kind of work." Now I'm seeing much better compatibility and performance with this latest driver."

Result from @stevty2889

My ARC 770 build - because why not?

i5 12600K
Asrock Z690 Gaming Phantom 4
16GB Corsair DDR4-3600
Asrock ARC 770
1TB Crucial MX500 SSD
2x 4TB Seagate HDD's
1080P Monitor

Have only runs some built in benchmarks on a couple older games so far.
.
Ashes of Singularity Escalation: 1080P High settings, 87.4 FPS average, 96.7% GPU Bound

Total War: Warrhammer 2: 1080P Ultra settings
Battle Benchmark: 114.1 FPS, 84 min
Campaign benchmark: 102.3 FPS, 81 min
Skaven benchmark: 81.1 FPS, 41 min

@gdansk confirms Medieval Total War Gold Edition (c. 2003) (Works with dxwrapper)

 

[sandorski]

aka - Letting the Internet be My Therapist

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Delta Force Black Hawk Down (DX8.1) - Fail. All troubleshooting steps taken, no dice.

Fallout 3- Pass. Another title that requires adding the DXVK files to the game folder where the .exe is.

Gears 5 - Pass. 1080 everything maxed locked 60.

aka - Letting the Internet be My Therapist

That's what my heavy bag is for. Nice thread crap though.

 

[DeathReborn]

Delta Force Black Hawk Down (DX8.1) - Fail. All troubleshooting steps taken, no dice.

Fallout 3- Pass. Another title that requires adding the DXVK files to the game folder where the .exe is.

Gears 5 - Pass. 1080 everything maxed locked 60.

That's what my heavy bag is for. Nice thread crap though.

Thanks for the Delta Force BHD testing, such a shame that series kinda died out. Any chance you could test older UT games (99, 04)?

 

[Tech Junky]

requires adding the DXVK files to the game folder where the .exe is.

Seems to be a trend here.... Must have been a "thing" when producing them for a period of time or a path issue for the A750 to find them w/o dumping them into the exe folders. I think this little guide might help convince people a 16GB A770 for $350 isn't such a bad deal compared to multiples more for NVIDIA / AMD options.

I still think ARC gives a good bang for the buck at least on paper. I can't get one in a laptop that's worth a crap for the price / performance though to test one. I like low cost and high performance which leads to whatever Clevo wants to use for their builds and have no use for a GPU in my server since it's headless as it's a router / AP / DVR / etc. and everything I do with it is SSH for the most part.

 

[Ranulf]

aka - Letting the Internet be My Therapist

Meaning its cheaper and actually useful.

Nice to see EF2 is working well on arc. I've been meaning to play that again since it hit Gog.

 

[sandorski]

Delta Force Black Hawk Down (DX8.1) - Fail. All troubleshooting steps taken, no dice.

Fallout 3- Pass. Another title that requires adding the DXVK files to the game folder where the .exe is.

Gears 5 - Pass. 1080 everything maxed locked 60.

That's what my heavy bag is for. Nice thread crap though.

Sorry, I'm actually interested in how it works out. Been there before though.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Thanks for the Delta Force BHD testing, such a shame that series kinda died out. Any chance you could test older UT games (99, 04)?

I don't own the unreal games any more. Probably lent them out to friends many years ago and never got them back. The Direct3D 9 x86-64 version should work with the DXVK files. If Black Hawk Down is any indication, the 8.1 version is unlikely to work. If I see a version for a buck or 3 I'll pick it up. I just bought Fear Platinum for $1.11 on GOG. I'll be testing it tonight.

@Tech Junky

I agree, ARC's bang for buck keeps improving. I also see more interest in ARC on the reddit subs of late. Other positives include that the installation process was as good as the other vendors. So is the daily driver experience.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

I just want to say I knew @DAPUNISHER before he is inevitably accused of being a shill.

Great thread and thanks for putting Intel's ARC through some non-traditional gaming DP. Doesn't sound like the right card for me and but it can very well be the right card for some young guy that has more time than money and is willing to tweek things to get a solid experience.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Being a shill sounds like a job.

The pandemic retired me at 53, and I decided to stay retired. This is a cheap and fun hobby. ARC is the first really interesting new PC part in a good while. It's all boring Ferengi math about boring products. When it's not the equivalent of exploding Ford Pintos anyways. ARC is the box of chocolates. Never know what you're gonna get.

F.E.A.R. Platinum - passed. Zero effort required. I will add it to the list. And big surprise, another game with my girl whispering Nvidiaaaaaa.

To embrace my new role as Intel shill, I will be perusing budget friendly 11th gen and LGA 1700 combos with iGPU again. I want to use Deep Link in handbrake to transcode blurays. I am also wondering if the Spiderman freezing issue is related to AMD or even AM4 specifically. I haven't seen anyone testing on Intel mention it.

 

[Tech Junky]

AMD

Now that's a box of chocolates.

 

[igor_kavinski]

To embrace my new role as Intel shill, I will be perusing budget friendly 11th gen and LGA 1700 combos with iGPU again. I want to use Deep Link in handbrake to transcode blurays. I am also wondering if the Spiderman freezing issue is related to AMD or even AM4 specifically. I haven't seen anyone testing on Intel mention it.

Your dedication to unpaid shilling for Intel is most appreciated

 

[Ranulf]

And big surprise, another game with my girl whispering Nvidiaaaaaa.

But its the way its meant to be played!

Every day, every game...that just forces me to watch as part of the loading screen a hardware logo I can't skip just gets me angrier and angrier. Most especially when I have reason to believe said logo splash screen delays the loading of the game.

 

[Tech Junky]

reason to believe said logo splash screen delays the loading of the game.

Watching task manager and disk access will prove this point. What pisses me off is the loading seems throttled to spinner speed no matter the disk being used. I know my M2 speed capability and it just fiddles around at about 10% of the available bandwidth while loading. Once it hits the GPU ram the disk is idle. This is the reason I advise people not to waste time with higher end drives just for a specific use like a game. Once you get beyond sata drives it doesn't make much difference even booting the os. To make use of the speed you need to be doing transactional data like video editing or a DB that's constantly changing.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

This guy produces the best ARC content I have seen anywhere. He covers every feature, not just gaming. I concur with his conclusion; it is a great enthusiast card for a second build. That's my use case.

Daniel-San on the other hand, provides a harsh reality check for all of the commenters saying they will buy an A770 16GB. He reminds his viewers that Intel's marketing is pricing and comparing against Nvidia, and pretending AMD doesn't exist. He shows the 6700XT with present pricing is the best spend if you are boycotting Spatula hoarder Man. Buying Intel as a protest against the established brands, is also a viable option though. Of course, protest usually involve sacrifice. ARC is no exception to that rule.

 

[aigomorla]

Dayam can't do Crisis.... lol...

How is it on encoding tho?
Can you compare it on handbrake with GPU encoding.
It would be awesome if we could see a comparison with a low ball nvidia card like a 3050 or a 1660Super even.

I am thinking more people would buy these to throw in plex boxes, or encoding rigs, as Intel Quicksync is pretty golden when it comes to encoding.

 

[Tech Junky]

I am thinking more people would buy these to throw in plex boxes, or encoding rigs, as Intel Quicksync is pretty golden when it comes to encoding.

I'm using just a 12700k for Plex and it is enough alone. The CPU handles both comskip and transcoding well w/o the need for a GPU. Even the 8700k handled it well. Now, AMD is not something I've tried and it might be a huge boost.

 

[Ranulf]

That's my use case.

Hmm, which system to use it with, a 5900x, a 12700k or maybe an 3700x itx build.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Dayam can't do Crisis.... lol...

How is it on encoding tho?
Can you compare it on handbrake with GPU encoding.
It would be awesome if we could see a comparison with a low ball nvidia card like a 3050 or a 1660Super even.

I am thinking more people would buy these to throw in plex boxes, or encoding rigs, as Intel Quicksync is pretty golden when it comes to encoding.

It plays Crysis, but not the way it should. You'd think the team would have ensured it was a great experience early on. It's the longest running joke/meme in the hobby.

I am planning to use it with handbrake. I want to find a cheap 11th gen or newer combo first so I can try Deep Link. The following quote is from the comment section of the Proceu Tech vid - " At 1080p AV1 from Blu-Ray with the quality speed and 20 quality, anywhere from 100 to 240 fps. Older films with a lot of grain and artifacts tend to cause those numbers on the low-end, but modern films usually ended up with 200+ when I transcoded them. The quality compared to a BD rip is near indistinguishable. File sizes were usually what you'd expect from HEVC at the same settings."

I was surprised Call of Pripyat played correctly with no effort. Same with F.E.A.R. and the Star Wars games.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that Stalker is the first game with a Radeon premium graphics logo. Followed by a logo for AMD - The future is Fusion.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Hmm, which system to use it with, a 5900x, a 12700k or maybe an 3700x itx build.

I'd go all Intel/team blue. Undoubtedly better validated and some features are exclusive.

 

[Ranulf]

I'd go all Intel/team blue. Undoubtedly better validated and some features are exclusive.

Probably the best option.

 

[Rigg]

It I want to find a cheap 11th gen or newer combo first so I can try Deep Link.

https://www.microcenter.com/product/5006468/intel-core-i7-12700k,-asus-z690-p-prime-wifi-ddr5,-gskill-flare-x5-16gb-ddr5-5600,-computer-build-bundle

I'm not sure if it's an option for you but a it's a pretty crazy deal none the less.

 

[aigomorla]

https://www.microcenter.com/product/5006468/intel-core-i7-12700k,-asus-z690-p-prime-wifi-ddr5,-gskill-flare-x5-16gb-ddr5-5600,-computer-build-bundle

I'm not sure if it's an option for you but a it's a pretty crazy deal none the less.

that's single channel on the ram just to note..
meaning a single stick only.
So unless you intend to buy another ram stick, i sort of say that deal is sort of misleading.

 

[Rigg]

that's single channel on the ram just to note..
meaning a single stick only.
So unless you intend to buy another ram stick, i sort of say that deal is sort of misleading.

2 channel would be better for sure. The CPU and board alone are $480 from newegg though. Still a pretty good deal IMO.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

2 channel would be better for sure. The CPU and board alone are $480 from newegg though. Still a pretty good deal IMO.

For sure. Closest store unfortunately, is Duluth, Georgia = 440 miles/708km.

This is day 9 of using the system exclusively. With either HDMI and TV, or DP and single monitor. No BSODs, no black screens, no audio issues. Driver and software update process is equal to AMD, and better than Nvidia, because they don't force you to make an account to access all of their software.

Also on a hot streak of 6 games in a row working great with no extra steps.