Many users still wonder whether Intel’s Arc GPU supports Ray Tracing graphics technology like Nvidia and AMD.
According to MakeUseOf, Intel’s Arc GPU will launch in 2022 with the commitment to bring users a low-cost product line and good performance. This is also a move to break the monopoly of Nvidia and AMD in the GPU market and give users more choices.
Because it is still quite new in the GPU market, many users have wondered if Arc can ‘balance’ today’s modern graphics technologies? Especially Ray Tracing technology (ray tracing).
What is Ray Tracing?
Ray Tracing is a method to improve lighting quality in 3D environments. This method uses linear light rays traveling through the medium, combined with the properties of the medium through which it is transmitted, reflected, refracted or absorbed until those rays reach the camera.
The real-time calculations of this method are able to accurately reflect the lighting conditions in the environment while still obeying most of the physical laws of light. Thanks to this, the light and dark areas of things in the game are processed to best suit its properties and the surrounding environment.
Does Intel’s Arc GPU support Ray Tracing?
Returning to the question about the ability to support Ray Tracing technology of Intel GPUs, the answer is yes.
Arc has support for Ray Tracing. This is done using specialized hardware called Ray Tracing Units (RTU). Additionally, Intel uses a feature they call Asynchronous Ray Tracing, which combines rays with shaders to ensure the RTUs (also known as Intel Xe cores) are being fully utilized.
Here’s how many RTUs each Intel Arc GPU is using:
- Arc A770: 32 RTU
- Arc A750: 28 RTU
- Arc A580: 24 RTU
- Arc A380: 8 RTU
- Arc A310: 6 RTU
From the list above, it can be seen that the low-end Arc 300 series GPUs do not bring much performance to Ray Tracing, because their RTUs are too small. However, the Intel Arc 700 series is not inferior to the Nvidia RTX 3060 in terms of performance points.
When compared to the RTX 3060 in an Intel test, the Arc A770 performed equally, if not better, in more than 10 games running Ray Tracing at 1080p. Combined with XeSS, Intel’s answer to Nvidia’s DLSS technology, performance increases at 1440p resolution.
One important thing to note, however, is software support. Powerful hardware won’t help too much without good drivers. Getting the right drivers, especially in first-generation products, is not easy, and Intel’s Arc product line has suffered from underperforming drivers since its launch.
How important is software to GPU Arc?
While the Arc series support Ray Tracing, that doesn’t mean they can take full advantage of the in-game feature. Arc’s hardware RTU is intended solely to enhance the performance of ray tracing algorithms.
In order for the game to run Ray Tracing on the Arc GPU, game developers will need to integrate the feature using Microsoft’s DirectX12 or Vulkan APIs. Essentially, these two APIs represent every game with Ray Tracing.
While this puts Intel on par with Nvidia and AMD in terms of software compatibility, the other two giants still lead in driver quality. Early users of the Arc product line revealed a number of driver issues that hindered their performance and experience.
Good drivers also help provide additional software features for the GPU. These add performance benefits and even use cases beyond gaming. Nvidia’s DLSS 3.0 is a good example of this.