Author: mangakiko

Almost a year ago, Intel made a big announcement about its push into the dedicated graphics business. Intel Arc would be the brand name for a new batch of gaming GPUs, pushing far beyond the company’s previous efforts and competing directly with Nvidia’s GeForce and AMD’s Radeon GPUs.

Arc is the culmination of years of work, going back to at least 2017, when Intel poached AMD GPU architect Raja Koduri to run its own graphics division. And while Intel would be trying to break into an established and fiercely competitive market, it would benefit from the experience and gigantic install base that the company had cultivated with its integrated GPUs.

Intel sought to prove its commitment to Arc by showing off a years-long road map, with four separate named GPU architectures already in the pipeline. Sure, the GPUs wouldn’t compete with top-tier GeForce and Radeon cards, but they would address the crucial mainstream GPU market, and high-end cards would follow once the brand was more established.

All of that makes Arc a lot more serious than Larrabee, Intel’s last effort to break into the dedicated graphics market. Larrabee was canceled late in its development because of delays and disappointing performance, and Arc GPUs are actual things that you can buy (if only in a limited way, for now). But the challenges of entering the GPU market haven’t changed since the late 2000s. Breaking into a mature market is difficult, and experience with integrated GPUs isn’t always applicable to dedicated GPUs with more complex hardware and their own pool of memory.

Regardless of the company’s plans for future architectures, Arc’s launch has been messy. And while the company is making some efforts to own those problems, a combination of performance issues, timing, and financial pressures could threaten Arc’s future.

early turbulence

A year after its announcement, it seems that Arc is already on shaky ground. Intel has proven characteristically incapable of meeting its initial launch estimates, just barely managing to pull off a paper launch of two low-end laptop GPUs in Q1 (the original launch window) and failing to follow up with widely available desktop cards in Q2. The company has been very public about its struggles with drivers, which are hurting the cards’ performance in older but still widely played games. And the graphics division is losing money at a time when revenue is tumbling across Intel.

And that’s just what is happening in public. A report from the German-language Igor’s Lab claims that Intel’s board partners (the ones who would be putting the Arc GPU dies on boards, packaging them, and shipping them out) and the OEMs who would be putting Arc GPUs into their prebuilt computers are getting frustrated with the delays and lack of communication.

A long, conspiratorial video from YouTuber Moore’s Law is Dead goes even farther, suggesting (using a combination of “internal sources” and speculation) that people in Intel’s graphics division are “lying” to consumers and others in the company about the state of the GPUs, that the first-generation Alchemist architecture has fundamental performance-limiting flaws, and that Intel is having internal discussions about discontinuing Arc GPUs after the second-generation “Battlemage” architecture.

We’ve contacted Intel and several GPU manufacturers to see if they had anything to share on the matter; the short version is no—Intel has no news on release dates. Asus says it”[doesn’t] currently have anything in the pipeline for Intel Arc on the North America side,” and other companies haven’t responded yet. For his part, Intel graphics VP Raja Koduri have said publicly that “we are very much committed to our roadmap” and that there will be “more updates from us this quarter” and “four new product lines by the end of the year.”

You know when you see somebody playing a game and think to yourself, ‘Wow, I would be so incredibly great at this,’ and you walk through life holding that opinion of yourself, just waiting for the right opportunity to provide yourself to someone who do you care? Yeah, me too.

There have been countless times where I’ve seen a trailer for a game or watched somebody stream themselves playing it, and for some unknown reason, I suddenly think that I would become the greatest gamer to live and crush the game and bring actual tears to those who watched me play it.

Have I ever actually played any of those games to prove that hypothesis? No, not at all. I just let the ego grow until it’s actually insufferable having to listen to myself think about how great I’d be at them.

I should probably preface this entire article with the fact that I am an extreme perfectionist with a crippling fear of failure (how quirky and unique of me). That basically means that I need everything I do to be flawless (unachievable) and that if I start something, I need to be immediately good at it (unattainable). Please keep this in mind while you read this list of games that I just assumed I’d be good at without ever playing them.

I also want to point out that whilst I’m poking fun at these games, I am intensely jealous of those who are actually good at them. I envy you, beautiful gamers.

5 games I’d be good at, with no proof whatsoever

The Quarry

now listen, The Quarry is a game I’m reasonably confident I’d be good at. Spectacular at, even.

My reasoning for this all boils down to the same cliche that everyone always says, that I’m obsessed with horror/slasher movies and, therefore, I’d know how to survive one.

I think I just heard the collective groan from the audience but hear me out. I’m different, okay? Lo prometo. I’m not like all the other girls!

I like to believe that I make smart decisions, and I’ve watched a lot of slasher films, so I think I’d have a pretty good chance of surviving. Plus, I give off tremendous final girl energy. But, again, that assumption is based on nothing else besides my own juicy ego.

And before you shout at me, I know there are alternate endings in The Quarry. So how can you really be that great at it when there are many different ways to play and end the game? Well, my answer to that hateful question is that I just feel it deep in my soul that I would get a good storyline and make it to the end.

To put my ego to the test, I actually bought The Quarry the other day because it seems like such a Me type of game.

However, every time I went to put the disc in, I was overcome by a cacophony of voices that told me how soul-crushing it would be if I were bad at this game. It was at that point that my hands started to tremble, sweat started dripping off my brow, and I was frozen in fear. ‘What if I am bad at this?’ I thought to myself. ‘How could I possibly deal with myself? How could I continue working for a gaming journalism site if I couldn’t play a simple slasher game?’ I then dropped to the floor, disc still in hand, and curled up into the fetal position for roughly an hour.

Anyways, how was your weekend?

FIFA

FIFA is actually a game that I have played and have failed at.

Wow, being so vulnerable on here with all of you is hard.

Before you ask, yes, I did think that I’d be good at this game without having any prior knowledge of FIFA besides the fact it was a virtual soccer game. It also did not help that my brother was incredible at it, which made sense because soccer has been his entire life. But this didn’t seem to be the case for me.

I mostly believed I’d be good at this game because otherwise, my six years of playing soccer would be for nothing.

I originally thought my being bad at FIFA had something to do with being a flaming homosexual, and that felt okay with me because there’s nothing I can do to fix that. But then, when I started meeting more queer gamers, I realized that perhaps the issue, for once, was me and not my sexuality.

The revelation was earth-shattering. The ground beneath me started crumbling, and I questioned my very existence. How could it possibly be my fault? Those laborious six years of soccer were, in fact, for nothing. What was the point of playing the game in real life if I couldn’t excel at it?

I understand that physical capabilities don’t necessarily translate into video games, but I also feel there’s no way I could be bad at it.

It also baffles me how bad I was at it when I first played it. Like how is that even possible? You’re literally kicking a ball around on a screen. How did I manage not to be good at that?

But even though I used to play and was horrifically awful at it, I still hold the belief that if I played it again, I would be exceptional. Should I ever play FIFA again, I would be the second coming of Messi, a virtual Messi. To Vessi, if you will. (I was also workshopping Virssi, but that lowkey sounds like a disease, so I’ll keep working on that).

Maybe I’ll play FIFA 23 purely because Sam Kerr is on the cover of it.

Fortnite

The biggest reason I think I’d obliterate Fortnite is that there was a moment where everyone was obsessed with it, so it must be a pretty easy game. That’s how that works, right?

Honestly, it was probably because I wanted to fit in, so I told everyone I had played it and was great at it, and I got so caught up in the lie that I just started to believe it myself.

My dirty little secret, however, is that I have never played Fortnite nor attempted to. And if I did have to play it, I’d probably be terrible at it.

But really, how hard can it be? Don’t you just go around shooting people and climbing things? Sounds easy to me. Please don’t tell me it’s hard; just let me live in my fantasy world where two things are true—one that it’s easy, and two that I’d come first every time.

Also, the fact that literal children were winning further proves to me that I should, hypothetically, be fantastic at Fortnite.

Grand Theft Auto V

It must be said: I love crime.

Just kidding! Please don’t arrest me.

But there is something about simulated crime on a video game that I just feel speaks to my soul. Have I ever committed a crime in my life? No. Do I get crippling anxiety that I’ve broken every law possible when a cop walks past me? Yes, yes, I do.

Despite that, the allure of Grand Theft Auto appeals to me despite me having never played it. But from seeing others play it and clips of gameplay online, I reckon I’d have a pretty good go at it. You’re just driving around and robbing people, right? That’s basically what I do on the sims.

A big part of my reasoning for not playing Grant Theft Auto but believing I’d be good at it is because I’ve seen so much online that I feel like I already have played the game.

I also am worried that, given recent controversies, the allure of GTA is bigger than what it actually is and that if I play it, I won’t be able to live in my fantasy world anymore.

Grand Touring

My thoughts about the Grand Touring franchise mirror those I have for FIFA. David might virtually beat me up for saying this, but how hard is it to drive a car around a track in a game? (Editor’s note: I am preparing a five-page rant as we speak — David)

I also fear that I lack a general level of understanding about racing, so my ignorance bleeds into Grand Touring because, again, is it that hard to just like, drive? (Editor’s note: I’m fine. I’m fine. – David)

Here are my reasons for thinking I’d be good at GT:

1. I learned how to drive in Sydney, a notoriously awful place to drive
2. My Corolla goes vroom, and I get happy
3. I have the need, the need for speed (I’m so sorry)
4. Again, car + track = Grand Tourism. I dropped maths in high school, but that seems like a simple equation to me

(Editor’s note: I take it all back, you’ve actually cleared the bar to be a Supercars driver by quite a way — David)

Will I ever play these games? Maybe.

Will I actually be good at them? Probably not.

Does that determine me from wanting to play them so I can keep my ego intact and live in a fantasy world where I am the greatest gamer ever to grace this broken earth? Yes, absolutely.

But I want to hear from you, the people, my fellow ego-driven gamers; what games did you just assume you’d be great at? Are you actually great at it? Let me know in the comments below!