Intel and CDPR heard you liked Cyberpunk 2077. So a new patch that supports Intel's XeSS scaling technology has improved the performance of the Arc graphics card in the game by over 70%. Excellent.

Specifically, Intel claims that the latest cyberpunk patch has improved the performance of the Intel Arc A750 (opens in new tab) card with 1080p, ultra detail, and medium ray tracing enabled from 39fps to 67fps.

Of course, the performance being compared here is with and without XeSS scaling: 39 fps is with native 1080p operation; 67 fps is with XeSS scaling.

Before this patch was applied, it was also possible to run AMD's FSR scaling on an Intel Arc card. However, XeSS has two modes, one of which uses the Arc GPU's AI core to accelerate scaling.

This mode generally performs better than AMD's FSR scaling and relies on common instructions, so it can run on modern GPUs.

It is also worth noting that XeSS was set to performance mode to achieve 67 fps. This is the most aggressive mode and does not bode well for image quality.

At 1080p in Performance mode, XeSS renders the game at a resolution of 960 x 540 pixels, which is then scaled to 1920 x 1080. In contrast, in Quality mode, it will scale from 1280 x 720 pixels.

In general, scaling techniques such as XeSS, AMD's FSR, and Nvidia's DLSS are more effective at higher target resolutions such as 4K. Therefore, running XeSS in performance mode does not provide a true 1080p experience.

Nevertheless, it is welcome to see Intel's Arc GPUs getting such love, and the joy of XeSS applies to the Intel Arc A770 (open in new tab) board, of course.

Intel still has a ways to go to be truly competitive in unforgiving PC graphics. But with each of these small improvements, it is one step closer to being on equal footing with AMD and Nvidia.

It will be most significant when Intel announces its second generation Arc GPU, codenamed Battlemage, some time next year. If Intel's first Arc GPU was a bit of an experiment that had to be excused, Battlemage really needs to deliver. Sorting out details like XeSS support in well-known games like Cyberpunk is all part of this process.