Intel Says DirectX 12 Could Allow Xe GPUs To Run Games Pretty Decently

Intel Xe graphics cards may pack more gaming punch than expected, according to Intel developer Allen Hux. During a digital talk held for the online reimagining of the canceled GDC conference, Hux offered insights into how Intel Xe GPUs and integrated GPUs could team up to provide much better frame rates thanks to DirectX 12.

Hux’s revelation is interesting in that it leaves the door for other processors, from Intel and AMD alike, to offer better performance when linking up with a discrete GPU. In practice, a dedicated GPU from AMD or NVIDIA could harness the otherwise in-context pointless power of an integrated graphics solution to give games more power to toy with, resulting in better performance.

Speculation as to whether Intel was preparing something feathering what Hux revealed has done the rounds for some time, notably with Intel aiming to push to market a GPU capable of rivaling NVIDIA and AMD in the cut-throat gaming market.

With Intel Xe DG1 GPU not offering what anyone could describe as anything other than very little power, then seeing it team up with notebook CPUs such as Tiger Lake, should provide a much-needed boost, however small it may be.

Naturally, much of this will bank on whether game developers are inclined to rejig their games to tap into multiple GPUs. As Hux explains, the method involves using DirectX 12 to get the two GPUs working in tandem.

This is not simple and involves some coding wizardry that would see DirectX 12 distribute workloads between different GPUs. The dedicated GPU would compute and render the lion’s share of the workload, with certain parts passed on to the integrated GPU. Hux mentions sending particle effects, deformation, AI, shadows, and physics to the integrated GPU, for example

Hux explains that the method is a kind of ‘enhancement of async compute.’ However, not too many games use async compute to start with, which means a limit to which games would be able to benefit. Async compute is already pretty rare, so to see the game developers using it go to extra lengths to incorporate multiple GPU Direct X 12 workload sharing seems even more unlikely.

Nevertheless, if put into practice, we could see some Thinline gaming laptops equipped with Xe GPUs offer some relatively impressive in-game performance.