Some Intel Arc GPUs are finally able to run Crimson Desert, three weeks after the game’s launch. This change comes after some heavy community backlash, which, let’s be fair, developer Pearl Abyss could have avoided in the first place.
Back on March 19, Intel Arc owners were surprised to see that Crimson Desert was not supported by their GPUs, presenting an error message at launch. Upon further investigation, it was discovered that the developer knew about this, as it was mentioned in the game’s FAQ, yet never clearly informed potential buyers.
As if this wasn’t enough, instead of asking for time to add support for these GPUs, the developers, in unconventional behaviour, encouraged players to seek refunds, leading many to believe that support won’t come any time soon. When prompted by the media, Intel confirmed that it had nothing to do with this issue, adding that it offered development help, which was refused by Pearl Abyss.
This report made users arguably even angrier, including some AMD and Nvidia owners, as this could set a bad precedent where developers ostracise GPU brands for one reason or another. Seeing this, Pearl Abyss released a new statement informing that it is working on compatibility and optimisation for Intel Arc GPUs. Nearly three weeks later, here we are, with the first indications of Arc compatibility starting to appear on social media.
According to multiple reports from Reddit, Crimson Desert is now playable on Intel Arc B580 using the 32.0.101.8629 driver. One Redditor indicated that their game runs at around 60fps using the Ultra graphics setting at 1440p resolution. Another reported that while the game runs at 50fps, the experience wasn’t free of bugs, as they encountered problems with character face rendering.
While the game runs fine without upscaling, it’s important to note that enabling AMD FSR causes crashes, which in some cases require the deletion of the config file to relaunch it. Why use FSR instead of Intel’s XeSS, you may ask? Well, simply because the game doesn’t have that option. Unfortunately, Crimson Desert also doesn’t seem to work on last-gen A770 GPUs yet, as the game still shows the compatibility warning at launch.
Despite these limitations, this is great news for Arc owners, as the game seems to be on the right track for full playability. Furthermore, it is important to note that the current support is not even official yet, as neither the driver nor the game changelogs reflect this change. In other words, think of this as a beta test of what is to come.
