There is no doubt that Intel is the world’s largest chip manufacturer and designer. More than anything due to the fact that it is both, while its rivals are one or the other, but not both at the same time. This causes them to launch a large number of hardware products and many of them need their drivers. Well, they have decided. remove support for your Intel integrated graphics on older models of their microprocessors. Is yours among them?
If there is something that Intel has been sadly famous for, it has been its lousy graphics architectures, which they are correcting with the creation of their ARC architecture, formerly known as Xe. However, there is a sad legacy behind it that has continued to have support until now. With the recent problems in adapting the drivers for the ARC Alchemist, which is hindering its release, the volume of personnel required for this task is more difficult than ever, which has led them to make a decision regarding the support of old hardware.
Intel stops supporting its old integrated graphics
Before you throw your hands over your head, keep in mind that this is a natural process in any computer product. Every product has a support time and when a reasonable time has passed, all the human and capital resources are moved to those that are newer and that are, therefore, more important in the present time. That is why the fact that Intel has decided to stop improving drivers for its integrated graphics ancient. What models does it affect? Well, processors with SkyLake architectures, from sixth generation to tenth generation, Coffee Lake.
Since the change affects iGPU support, it not only affects desktop models under the Core name, but also other families such as Atom, Celeron y Xeon based on these architectures. However, this is not a complete end of support, as this will continue in the event of potential security breaches. This is due to the long-term support contracts that the company today led by Pat Gelsinger has with others.
So this means that the drivers will now come in two separate packages. One for the old Intel integrated graphics and one for the new ones found from Intel Core 11 onwards. The latter are much closer in architecture and therefore it makes sense for Intel to make this change.
How does this Intel decision affect us?
Very simply, if you see that with a new game or a recently appeared application it gives problems with your integrated graphics and your processor is among those that have lost support, then keep in mind that unless it is a security problem from Intel they will not optimize the graphic driver to solve said problem. So it is a movement not only to improve support for current graphics, but to force the transition of part of its users to their new CPUs.
