I’m considering building a new machine soon and was looking at the Intel Arc GPUs as a possibility. Anyone have experience using them in their system? I’m on Arch btw

  • CalcProgrammer1@lemmy.ml
    17·
    1 year ago

    I’ve been running an A770 Limited Edition on Arch for a year now and I am happy with it now. It was a rough start, with issues ranging from glitches and crashes to HDMI and DisplayPort audio/VRR issues, but these days it is pretty solid. VRR works fine on my DisplayPort 144Hz 4K monitor. Most games perform pretty well but temper your expectations, the A770 is a midrange card.

    I can play Overwatch 2 at 4K 144Hz low settings just fine and I don’t see many frame dips. It’s not noticeable if it does dip because VRR. CS2 performance isn’t amazing, but at low settings 4K I get between 100 and 160 frames depending on complexity. I have FSR turned on. On Cyberpunk I have FSR turned on and it seems to dip down to 20fps when out in the desert and the city is in view, but usually 40 to 60.

    • SteveTech@programming.devEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      I wasn’t able to enable VRR on my monitor (with freesync). I’m using KDE Wayland on Debian Testing, just wondering if you knew a workaround or something?

      • CalcProgrammer1@lemmy.ml
        2·
        1 year ago

        What kernel are you using? Debian tends to lag behind with kernel updates which makes it a bad choice when running new hardware. I switched from Debian to Arch when I got my A770 because at the time Debian’s latest kernel even in sid didn’t support Arc at all while it worked fine in Arch.

        • SteveTech@programming.devEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          I’m running 6.5.10, also with an A770. I could maybe try/compile 6.6 later, but 6.5 seems new enough I thought.

            • SteveTech@programming.devEnglish
              2·
              1 year ago

              Yeah no change with 6.6, I guess I’ll probably open an issue somewhere when I have the time to figure out what’s broken.

              • CalcProgrammer1@lemmy.ml
                1·
                1 year ago

                Just to make sure, you’re using DisplayPort right? I don’t think the Arc cards support VRR over HDMI. The HDMI port on the Arc is actually a built in DisplayPort to HDMI converter, and I don’t think any converter chips support VRR modes.

                  • SteveTech@programming.devEnglish
                    1·
                    1 year ago

                    Okay so for whatever reason, turning Freesync on and off a bunch of times from the OSD and then replugging works until the next reboot, so I’ve dumped the working EDID and I’m trying to figure out how to load it at boot (but I’m not having much luck).

                    For reference, the monitor is a Samsung LC24RG50.

                    Edit: Got the EDID loaded, KDE says it’s supported, but VRRTest doesn’t really seem to do anything.

                    Edit 2: Other games work fine.

    • Kaidao@lemmy.mlOP
      1·
      1 year ago

      Thanks for this. I’m on 1440p so hopefully the performance will be a bit better. The A770 seems like it has great price to performance though, making it one of the top spots on my list.

      Glad to hear that support is solid on Arch

      • CalcProgrammer1@lemmy.ml
        1·
        1 year ago

        I upgraded from a 1440p 144Hz screen last month. It works well with 1440p and you won’t need to rely on FSR as much as on a 4K 144 screen.

    • Static_Rocket@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Yeah, I’ve noticed occasional regressions in video decode performance between kernel releases but they tend to fix them in the next release.

      Otherwise smoother sailing than Nvidia for sure.