Intel is in the business of improving drivers for its latest graphics processing technologies, more specifically those integrated with Xe technology and dedicated Arc. The chip giant still needs to improve to catch up with NVIDIA and AMD Radeon, and aside from adding features like DirectStorage and tweaking things like using DXVK instead of D3D9on12 to execute Direct3D 9 instructions, the chip giant unified in the same package the drivers for the integrated graphics of generations 11, 12 and 13 of its processors and the dedicated Intel Arc.

With the graphics driver update to version 31.0.101.4032, the “Intel Graphics Driver” as such has ceased to exist, and instead a package for integrated Xe graphics and dedicated Arc graphics is now offered. There is also another package, version 31.0.101.2115, for 6th to 10th generation Intel processors.

It may come as a surprise to some that unlike NVIDIA Intel Don’t differentiate between desktop oriented products and laptop oriented products, which means that Intel driver packages support both types of computers. This approach is probably more familiar to Linux users who are used to drivers for all brands and all devices being present in the kernel and Mesa with the exception of NVIDIA, which is free.

Drivers 31.0.101.4032 provide various fixes when running the following software: PayDay 2 on DirectX 9 and God of War on DirectX 11 on Intel Arc on one side and Battlefield 2042 on DirectX 12, Watch Dogs: Legion on DirectX 12, Hitman 3 on DirectX 12 and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla on DirectX 12 when running over the integrated processor.

This move from Intel will help facilitate support when users want to download graphics drivers from their website. From now on, all modern brand GPUs should be supported by a single package.