1 00:00:00,060 --> 00:00:05,759 who in their right mind would choose anything but the best possible solution 2 00:00:03,780 --> 00:00:11,340 for the money I've never been able to figure it out but then against my 3 00:00:07,980 --> 00:00:15,000 deepest instincts that is exactly what I 4 00:00:11,340 --> 00:00:17,400 did and me for 30 days we have both been 5 00:00:15,000 --> 00:00:22,199 running Intel Arc gpus in our primary gaming rigs dealing with everything from 6 00:00:19,100 --> 00:00:24,420 Annoying software to low performance 7 00:00:22,199 --> 00:00:28,560 drivers to Broken functionality I haven't been able to play Minecraft 8 00:00:25,320 --> 00:00:30,900 dungeons with my kids in a month yikes 9 00:00:28,560 --> 00:00:36,300 but then I don't know what maybe halfway through about halfway I think yeah yeah 10 00:00:33,420 --> 00:00:41,280 something happened I stopped doing the arc Challenge and I started just using 11 00:00:39,420 --> 00:00:45,239 my computer yeah I kind of just forgot about it I still have some bones to pick 12 00:00:43,140 --> 00:00:50,280 with Intel's GPU team to be very clear but like that urgent feeling I had to 13 00:00:47,760 --> 00:00:54,480 just like work it out of my computer well it's been replaced with like I'm 14 00:00:52,559 --> 00:00:58,500 gonna do it still but uh I'll get around to it get around to it eventually right 15 00:00:55,980 --> 00:01:03,000 most of the problems I was having were more related to potentially the 16 00:01:00,539 --> 00:01:08,340 applications or games that just have problems all the time like we play Star 17 00:01:05,159 --> 00:01:09,780 Citizen yeah well like and sure there 18 00:01:08,340 --> 00:01:14,460 was problems but it was Star Citizen I played tarkov same deal not many of the 19 00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:20,880 issues were clearly attributable to just the arc GPU itself and we're obviously 20 00:01:16,920 --> 00:01:23,700 not the only ones the a770 has 4.3 eggs 21 00:01:20,880 --> 00:01:28,740 out of five on NewEgg and just shy of four stars on Amazon for a product we 22 00:01:26,400 --> 00:01:32,580 wrote off then rooted for then completely wrote off 23 00:01:30,720 --> 00:01:38,220 that's kind of outstanding pretty good pretty good like our sponsor thorum 24 00:01:36,060 --> 00:01:43,200 thorum makes elegant rings out of unique materials from meteorite to dinosaur 25 00:01:39,900 --> 00:01:46,880 bone use code LTT to get 20 off today 26 00:01:43,200 --> 00:01:46,880 and stay tuned to learn more 27 00:01:47,579 --> 00:01:54,420 foreign 28 00:01:54,420 --> 00:02:00,240 for the conspiracy theorists out there no this challenge was not sponsored by 29 00:01:58,680 --> 00:02:04,920 Intel and what better way to prove it than to open with all the things that 30 00:02:02,040 --> 00:02:10,200 went wrong a lot of things went wrong first up is my issues with VR I did 31 00:02:08,039 --> 00:02:15,840 eventually get it working thanks to a closed alpha driver from Intel but 32 00:02:13,140 --> 00:02:19,860 to say that it's not ideal would be an understatement I can mostly play 33 00:02:17,760 --> 00:02:25,080 stationary games like beat saber but anything even marginally more demanding 34 00:02:22,080 --> 00:02:27,060 especially with movement is a big 35 00:02:25,080 --> 00:02:30,900 problem I can only play the virtual reality Rick and Morty game for about 20 36 00:02:29,280 --> 00:02:36,480 minutes at a time for example before succumbing to nausea so just like in our 37 00:02:33,720 --> 00:02:42,480 last challenge VR was essentially a no-go for me and even worse that 38 00:02:39,300 --> 00:02:45,480 marginal VR experience cost me basic 39 00:02:42,480 --> 00:02:47,640 functionality on the same PC here in the 40 00:02:45,480 --> 00:02:53,700 rec room that my kids use for couch gaming so I was woken up early on more 41 00:02:50,879 --> 00:02:59,280 than one Saturday because the TV won't turn on which seems to be some kind of 42 00:02:56,459 --> 00:03:02,400 display wake bug in the alpha driver I won't hold that against them though 43 00:03:01,140 --> 00:03:06,599 not when there are plenty of inconveniences in the public drivers 44 00:03:04,680 --> 00:03:11,280 that I can hold against them like what is this why do I have to look at this 45 00:03:09,360 --> 00:03:16,200 limited DisplayPort functionality message every time my PC wakes from 46 00:03:13,560 --> 00:03:21,599 sleep the worst part is there's no limited functionality it's working fine 47 00:03:19,980 --> 00:03:27,180 I don't know for sure if it's actually caused by Arc but I've never seen this 48 00:03:24,659 --> 00:03:30,300 message before so have you received a notification from it that you have 49 00:03:28,680 --> 00:03:35,040 wanted to see no I can't say that I have yikes yeah I 50 00:03:33,300 --> 00:03:39,840 ran into things like that a lot system crashes with no Event Viewer logs weird 51 00:03:37,379 --> 00:03:46,200 graphical issues mostly with Reflections in various games really spiky lag and I 52 00:03:44,040 --> 00:03:51,599 don't know I saw that in Halo infinite yeah it's in a range of different games 53 00:03:48,000 --> 00:03:53,519 but not all of them which is weird I I 54 00:03:51,599 --> 00:03:58,200 can't say for sure that any of this was actually caused by Arc but I've never 55 00:03:56,459 --> 00:04:04,019 really seen anything like it before and full disclosure I already pulled out my 56 00:04:00,780 --> 00:04:05,459 a770 for the tarkov wipe I tried at the 57 00:04:04,019 --> 00:04:09,599 beginning of the wipe and it was horrible and okay it was over a month 58 00:04:07,799 --> 00:04:13,019 and a half so the fact that we're filming this now and it's already out is 59 00:04:11,040 --> 00:04:18,060 fine all right but I installed at the beginning of the wipe it was terrible 60 00:04:15,000 --> 00:04:21,299 okay I installed my previous card 61 00:04:18,060 --> 00:04:23,639 still terrible oh but not quite as 62 00:04:21,299 --> 00:04:28,380 terrible but that's probably a gap in price and yada yada 63 00:04:26,160 --> 00:04:32,580 the truth is I actually pulled one already too 64 00:04:30,540 --> 00:04:36,840 but for good reason I'm the kids couldn't play it takes two on the rec 65 00:04:34,680 --> 00:04:41,400 room PC because of the blank display issue and it was at like 29 days anyway 66 00:04:39,419 --> 00:04:45,419 a couple of other lingering issues though with my setup are to do with 67 00:04:43,020 --> 00:04:52,740 black levels and cable compatibility cable compatibility 68 00:04:48,600 --> 00:04:55,979 this one is bizarre active cables like 69 00:04:52,740 --> 00:04:59,699 fiber optic HDMI or DisplayPort cables 70 00:04:55,979 --> 00:05:03,000 just outright do not seem to work on Arc 71 00:04:59,699 --> 00:05:05,280 it's fine to run a standard cable into a 72 00:05:03,000 --> 00:05:09,300 Thunderbolt card then run Optical Thunderbolt to a dock then plug a 73 00:05:07,740 --> 00:05:15,120 standard cable from the dock into the monitor but I couldn't run any long run 74 00:05:12,900 --> 00:05:19,979 cables like these ones straight out of the back of the a770 to a display 75 00:05:16,919 --> 00:05:23,340 without getting a garbled image or most 76 00:05:19,979 --> 00:05:25,860 of the time no image at all it makes no 77 00:05:23,340 --> 00:05:31,080 sense to me because I would think that a cable with its own built-in signal 78 00:05:28,080 --> 00:05:32,940 repeater would you know be even less 79 00:05:31,080 --> 00:05:37,199 susceptible to low signal strength on the video output which is usually the 80 00:05:34,979 --> 00:05:41,400 issue in these cases but I didn't imagine this Intel seems to have been 81 00:05:39,600 --> 00:05:46,979 able to reproduce my issue on their end and are apparently working on a fix 82 00:05:44,280 --> 00:05:52,440 oh ah those run all the insulin speakers that will be a video get subscribed 83 00:05:49,199 --> 00:05:54,960 don't look look at ltdstore.com where we 84 00:05:52,440 --> 00:05:58,860 have amazing hoodies like the swacet and Wan hoodie here's another bizarre one 85 00:05:56,880 --> 00:06:03,419 check out the black levels on this display I messaged them about this a 86 00:06:00,660 --> 00:06:07,680 while back I think this started when I first connected my projector to the 87 00:06:05,520 --> 00:06:11,460 secondary output of the card through a Thunderbolt Hub and Optical Thunderbolt 88 00:06:09,660 --> 00:06:16,500 cable of course but I've since disconnected that and updated my drivers 89 00:06:14,039 --> 00:06:20,160 and it doesn't seem to have improved now there would be nothing of normal 90 00:06:18,120 --> 00:06:25,020 about this if I was on an LCD display but this is an OLED 91 00:06:22,740 --> 00:06:29,520 this is a black background and it is distinctly Gray 92 00:06:27,180 --> 00:06:35,460 now I think I have a theory actually I have a couple of theories first of all 93 00:06:31,199 --> 00:06:37,560 watch this when I switch it over to HDR 94 00:06:35,460 --> 00:06:42,780 the problem goes away it's now black if I plug into my wife's 95 00:06:40,680 --> 00:06:48,660 computer running an NVIDIA card well it doesn't matter if it's SDR or HDR it 96 00:06:45,479 --> 00:06:52,080 works fine so I think it's something to 97 00:06:48,660 --> 00:06:55,800 do with SDR video and the full versus 98 00:06:52,080 --> 00:06:58,380 limited RGB range values but I don't see 99 00:06:55,800 --> 00:07:04,380 any obvious way to change that in the arc Control software 100 00:07:00,840 --> 00:07:07,139 which software okay yeah that is 101 00:07:04,380 --> 00:07:12,240 definitely another ongoing problem I talked about that plenty in part one or 102 00:07:09,660 --> 00:07:17,400 1.5 or whatever it was but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop now Intel's 103 00:07:15,060 --> 00:07:22,319 approach to GPU software literally makes no sense to me at all if you already 104 00:07:19,979 --> 00:07:28,800 have a desktop GPU controller and you do yeah for the onboard Graphics why do you 105 00:07:25,740 --> 00:07:30,360 need our control another app and I 106 00:07:28,800 --> 00:07:35,639 hesitate to even call it that because it's an overlay that also does almost 107 00:07:33,120 --> 00:07:40,259 nothing even the built-in driver updater doesn't really like work I didn't get 108 00:07:38,160 --> 00:07:44,160 notifications for new drivers and when I set it to update automatically I did the 109 00:07:42,360 --> 00:07:49,259 same thing it didn't work I did the same thing I set it to update automatically 110 00:07:46,139 --> 00:07:51,539 on Sundays at 2 A.M I came back two 111 00:07:49,259 --> 00:07:55,800 weeks after an updated dropped and there was no update and then when I went to 112 00:07:53,819 --> 00:07:59,580 manually update I had to click it three times to get it to start doing anything 113 00:07:57,300 --> 00:08:03,840 and then it had no progress indicator whatsoever so we were actually gaming 114 00:08:01,800 --> 00:08:08,280 together at the time time Luke and my son are both waiting for me well I'm 115 00:08:05,940 --> 00:08:13,080 sitting here going look we're about to play CS go I need this driver update 116 00:08:11,400 --> 00:08:17,099 and I have no idea how long it's gonna take I ended up getting it through the 117 00:08:14,819 --> 00:08:19,500 Intel driver updater not even art control because it just didn't work 118 00:08:18,539 --> 00:08:25,080 which frustrating because the driver updates that landed while we were doing the 119 00:08:23,160 --> 00:08:31,139 challenge were actually really impressive yes Arc gpus ironically 120 00:08:28,020 --> 00:08:32,339 really struggle in older games and this 121 00:08:31,139 --> 00:08:38,159 is for a number of reasons architecturally they were designed for 122 00:08:34,380 --> 00:08:39,959 newer apis dx12 Vulcan in particular and 123 00:08:38,159 --> 00:08:44,039 on the software side Intel's Arc team hasn't spent the last 20 years coming up 124 00:08:41,940 --> 00:08:49,860 through those generations of games so there's a lot of holes dx9 in particular 125 00:08:47,100 --> 00:08:54,959 is not supported in Hardware at all on Arc Alchemist and Intel shifted strategy 126 00:08:52,560 --> 00:09:00,600 last summer to rely on emulation to support these games which has led to 127 00:08:56,640 --> 00:09:03,060 some kind of embarrassing results but we 128 00:09:00,600 --> 00:09:07,440 got to see a lot of that change right before our eyes they pulled off double 129 00:09:04,980 --> 00:09:11,880 almost triple digit performance improvements right smack in the middle 130 00:09:09,480 --> 00:09:17,459 of the challenge taking some key problem games from embarrassing to acceptable 131 00:09:15,360 --> 00:09:22,200 pretty much overnight and the way that they did it is really cool DX VK was 132 00:09:20,459 --> 00:09:28,620 originally developed for porting native Windows games to Linux it is not 133 00:09:25,260 --> 00:09:31,200 emulation but rather a translation layer 134 00:09:28,620 --> 00:09:35,820 that takes DirectX API calls and converts them to an equivalent Vulcan 135 00:09:33,420 --> 00:09:39,360 API call it's a key component of the proton compatibility tool that powers 136 00:09:37,560 --> 00:09:43,560 the valve steam deck and the thing is while it was designed for Linux nothing 137 00:09:41,640 --> 00:09:46,920 prevents you from using it on say Windows I mean the first proof of 138 00:09:45,120 --> 00:09:51,660 concept that I saw on this was done manually by an end user the difference 139 00:09:49,500 --> 00:09:55,740 is that Now Intel is taking that and baking it right into their drivers but 140 00:09:54,120 --> 00:10:01,200 that isn't to say that they're suddenly perfect here's some footage of a CS go 141 00:09:58,500 --> 00:10:05,540 gaming session with Luke running on the dxvk driver see I wasn't lying these are 142 00:10:04,500 --> 00:10:10,560 bad and that's one of the games that was 143 00:10:08,160 --> 00:10:16,019 specifically called out as improved by Intel yeah and this is another yikes 144 00:10:13,440 --> 00:10:19,320 aside from performance stutters I also got a completely black screen when I was 145 00:10:17,700 --> 00:10:22,560 trying to access the menu which is why I couldn't change teams for a while there 146 00:10:20,760 --> 00:10:25,620 I wouldn't describe these dips and performance as constant and when they 147 00:10:24,360 --> 00:10:30,360 weren't happening it was performing really well but they were definitely 148 00:10:28,080 --> 00:10:33,959 regular the weird thing is I just thought he was bad because mine was 149 00:10:31,680 --> 00:10:40,320 running fine the frustrating thing about its failings is that when Arc does well 150 00:10:36,620 --> 00:10:42,180 it does really well I was sure when we 151 00:10:40,320 --> 00:10:45,360 fired up Star Citizen it just wasn't gonna work we're gonna be watching a 152 00:10:43,740 --> 00:10:50,700 slide I thought it was going to be an absolute crap show terrible right but it 153 00:10:48,000 --> 00:10:54,779 was actually fine it was just a less powerful GPU than what I had before but 154 00:10:52,680 --> 00:10:59,519 it was no problem at least no more of a problem than anything is in Star Citizen 155 00:10:57,180 --> 00:11:05,180 fair enough and I saw the same in Halo infinite aside from just being less 156 00:11:01,440 --> 00:11:08,100 powerful than my 3090 it was fine 157 00:11:05,180 --> 00:11:12,300 once I adjusted my expectations right and turned off Reflections yeah I'm not 158 00:11:10,200 --> 00:11:16,140 sure it's Reflections specifically but I had some pretty bad problems I can only 159 00:11:14,100 --> 00:11:19,440 really describe it as purple lights I had no idea what you were talking about 160 00:11:17,399 --> 00:11:24,660 until finally I saw it at the end of the Star Citizen session okay yeah that's 161 00:11:22,440 --> 00:11:30,540 actually helpful it's it's really weird turning Reflections down or even off in 162 00:11:27,959 --> 00:11:34,260 some situations can tend to resolve them pretty much across the board but I 163 00:11:32,579 --> 00:11:38,880 basically just did that and then completely forgot about it because some 164 00:11:36,360 --> 00:11:42,180 level of reflection would still work it was kind of a wake-up call actually for 165 00:11:40,440 --> 00:11:48,060 me doing this challenge like when we review a new GPU we are so laser focused 166 00:11:45,600 --> 00:11:52,860 on new rendering features like Ray tracing or who provides the utmost in 167 00:11:51,000 --> 00:11:57,180 image quality with all the details cranked or whatever who has three 168 00:11:54,600 --> 00:12:02,579 percent more FPS but in the real world when I'm sitting in a dark room hanging 169 00:11:59,700 --> 00:12:07,560 out with the boys clicking heads those little details don't matter all I really 170 00:12:05,399 --> 00:12:12,060 care about is is the frame delivery smooth enough which is probably why Arc 171 00:12:10,800 --> 00:12:16,440 is ending up with these four star reviews I mean obsessive enthusiasts are 172 00:12:14,820 --> 00:12:20,279 going to compare and contrast with the best that NVIDIA and AMD have to offer 173 00:12:18,060 --> 00:12:24,480 and they're gonna find it sorely lacking yeah not really gonna work out there but 174 00:12:22,380 --> 00:12:29,640 I mean think about it it wasn't that long ago for me that turning off that 175 00:12:27,360 --> 00:12:33,000 setting that just like doesn't work was just a fact of life and I didn't worry 176 00:12:31,980 --> 00:12:36,480 about it what's the difference here well the 177 00:12:35,040 --> 00:12:40,200 difference is that we're talking about spending your own hard-earned money 178 00:12:38,220 --> 00:12:44,040 versus using whatever your parents have to bring home from Best Buy this is a 179 00:12:41,579 --> 00:12:47,820 product that you chose true and there are experiential problems that need to 180 00:12:45,600 --> 00:12:53,519 be addressed aside from like oh I can't enable Hair Works oh no extraneous Bulls 181 00:12:51,120 --> 00:12:58,500 some of it's small like slow driver download speeds but some of it is big 182 00:12:55,680 --> 00:13:02,040 like that art control center is a giant steaming pile of okay I have to tell you 183 00:13:01,260 --> 00:13:08,040 though self-centered Intel refuses to provide 184 00:13:05,639 --> 00:13:13,800 an exact timeline or any other details but they heard you and everyone they 185 00:13:10,500 --> 00:13:16,459 know the overlay sucks yes it's going 186 00:13:13,800 --> 00:13:22,620 away good we're getting a non-overlay single app that will have everything 187 00:13:19,320 --> 00:13:24,959 Consolidated into one pain it should 188 00:13:22,620 --> 00:13:29,040 have never even existed I know I know but you got to give them credit where 189 00:13:26,279 --> 00:13:33,420 it's due okay yeah and like the OBS recording issue that I ran into when I 190 00:13:30,779 --> 00:13:37,500 was testing av1 encoding shouldn't probably have really existed have been a 191 00:13:34,980 --> 00:13:43,320 problem either it was super cool yes 20 of the time it worked and yes like 192 00:13:40,680 --> 00:13:46,500 immediately after it was updated and fixed and that wasn't even an Intel 193 00:13:44,760 --> 00:13:50,220 issue in the first place that was an OBS issue which is kind of what I'm talking 194 00:13:48,540 --> 00:13:56,100 about whether it's working with Partners or listening to community feedback 195 00:13:52,500 --> 00:13:58,139 they're kind of on it and as critical as 196 00:13:56,100 --> 00:14:03,480 this Series has been I mean even most of this video was not exactly positive and 197 00:14:01,800 --> 00:14:07,380 as much as I'm absolutely still taking my a770 out as soon as this camera stops 198 00:14:06,180 --> 00:14:12,420 rolling in the last 30 days alone it's gotten 199 00:14:10,560 --> 00:14:14,880 worlds better which gives me a lot of Hope for the 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