Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition is the morning's big news, but we're putting some finishing touches on our in-depth coverage. For now, let's talk Intel drivers. Most game-playing gerbils' systems probably pack AMD Radeon or Nvidia GeForce discrete graphics, but many a monitor's pixels are pushed by the silicon integrated into the CPU die. Today's release of the 15.60 Intel Graphics Driver is highlighted by an updated control panel that showcases new game titles. Alongside the showcase, there's launch-day support for Okami HD.
Intel claims the updated driver has improved performance in the DirectX 11 versions of AAA titles Star Wars Battlefront II, Mass Effect Andromeda, Battlefield 1, and Rise of the Tomb Raider—along with a number of lesser-known titles. At least some of the performance and load time improvements come from a shader caching feature that is new to the Intel IGP drivers.
The driver notes say the update will provide increased accuracy in reporting FPS in Balanced and Power Saving modes and substantial performance increases when using MSAA in DX12 and Vulkan. In the realm of non-3D graphics, Intel promises enhanced HEVC playback performance on Kaby Lake and Coffee Lake chips and improvements to Intel Media SDK for improved encoding quality in dependent like PowerDirector and Magix.
The update also fixes some problems, including crashes and hangs in The Surge, Rise of the Tomb Raider, SOMA, SiSoft Sandra, Handbrake, and 3D video playback. Some graphical anomalies in Civilization 6, Forza 7, The Talos Principle, and Sony Catalyst are also fixed. Bugs with multiple monitors, waking from sleep, and KVMs have also received attention from the driver team.
Intel stopped producing non-security-related updates for Skylake chips on platforms other than Windows 10 back in July, and Kaby Lake and Coffee Lake CPUs came with Windows 10 support only from the get-go. Therefore, the 15.60 drivers are offered in Windows 10 64-bit flavor only. Gerbils using their Intel IGPs can read the release notes or just head to the download page.