Intel’s Latest Arc Beta Driver 101.6972 Boosts ‘Rematch’ Performance & Fixes ‘Returnal’ Crash

Intel just rolled out its Arc GPU Graphics Driver 101.6972 (Beta), and it comes with some handy upgrades for gamers.

There’s early support for “Killing Floor 3,” “Wuchang: Fallen Feathers,” and the big Unreal Engine 5 update for “Valorant.” But the real highlight is performance, especially for Arc B-series cards.

If you’re playing “Rematch” on an Arc B-series GPU, expect a decent boost. Intel says the update brings up to 12% better frame rates at 1440p and around 9% at 1080p when using Ultra settings.

The update also fixes some nagging issues. “Returnal” was crashing when ray tracing was turned on; however, it has been fixed. Additionally, “Fragpunk” had some strange black textures, and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 was randomly crashing in free flight mode. Those bugs are patched too.

Intel didn’t forget about integrated graphics either. Core Ultra Series 2 chips with built-in Arc iGPUs get fixes for Photoshop’s PugetBench errors and smoother performance in Topaz Video AI.

Intel has confirmed that some bugs are still lingering around. “Fortnite” may crash if you choose Performance mode with lower graphical fidelity. And both “Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0” and “Black Ops 6” still have some graphical weirdness around water.