Intel Arc Support?

[The Man With No Time]

I don't have an Intel Arc GPU, I'm just curious about a potential feature.

Arc GPUs seem to be selling & performing well presently, especially after their rough launch about a year ago. Thus, I would like to recommend them to people who keep asking me for PC hardware advice, but I cannot confirm if their drivers have improved enough to enable quality VR support and/or if Valve is working to add support for Intel Arc cards in SteamVR.

Many sources I've found are already many months out of date, so they're irrelevant. Some other sources declared that Steam Support outright told them that SteamVR will "never" support Intel Arc, which is a bold & extremely bizarre statement to come from Valve, given the company's freedom-based attitude towards PC gaming--you'd think they'd be more open to allowing selection for the customer.

Does anyone have more recent information? If you're a Valve employee, can you confirm if SteamVR supports Intel Arc, and if not, will it be made to be? Arc's proving to be a very capable GPU series, so it would be foolish & brutally unfair to lock customers out of VR because they picked "Team Blue" instead of "Team Red" or "Team Green" in the first place.

[grzegorz77]

Originally posted by The Man With No Time:

I don't have an Intel Arc GPU, I'm just curious about a potential feature.

Arc GPUs seem to be selling & performing well presently, especially after their rough launch about a year ago. Thus, I would like to recommend them to people who keep asking me for PC hardware advice, but I cannot confirm if their drivers have improved enough to enable quality VR support and/or if Valve is working to add support for Intel Arc cards in SteamVR.

Many sources I've found are already many months out of date, so they're irrelevant. Some other sources declared that Steam Support outright told them that SteamVR will "never" support Intel Arc, which is a bold & extremely bizarre statement to come from Valve, given the company's freedom-based attitude towards PC gaming--you'd think they'd be more open to allowing selection for the customer.

Does anyone have more recent information? If you're a Valve employee, can you confirm if SteamVR supports Intel Arc, and if not, will it be made to be? Arc's proving to be a very capable GPU series, so it would be foolish & brutally unfair to lock customers out of VR because they picked "Team Blue" instead of "Team Red" or "Team Green" in the first place.

Intel is not a small company with 3 employees, making its graphics cards in a garage that can't afford to make drivers.

If only they could raise prices, you'd be paying 15 times more for their products.
Don't help them pass on their own costs to other companies.

Drivers for new intel cards only work because they have taken advantage of the free work of the linux people. Intel didn't fix anything on its own.

And you're defending a company that's just trying to launch a product-as-a-service. They also sells processors with blocked capabilities in an attempt to make you pay for them a second time.

It's great that more competition is being created, but it's not a flawless knight on a white horse. So don't act like you just saw him.

[The Man With No Time]

Originally posted by grzegorz77:

Originally posted by The Man With No Time:

I don't have an Intel Arc GPU, I'm just curious about a potential feature.

Arc GPUs seem to be selling & performing well presently, especially after their rough launch about a year ago. Thus, I would like to recommend them to people who keep asking me for PC hardware advice, but I cannot confirm if their drivers have improved enough to enable quality VR support and/or if Valve is working to add support for Intel Arc cards in SteamVR.

Many sources I've found are already many months out of date, so they're irrelevant. Some other sources declared that Steam Support outright told them that SteamVR will "never" support Intel Arc, which is a bold & extremely bizarre statement to come from Valve, given the company's freedom-based attitude towards PC gaming--you'd think they'd be more open to allowing selection for the customer.

Does anyone have more recent information? If you're a Valve employee, can you confirm if SteamVR supports Intel Arc, and if not, will it be made to be? Arc's proving to be a very capable GPU series, so it would be foolish & brutally unfair to lock customers out of VR because they picked "Team Blue" instead of "Team Red" or "Team Green" in the first place.

Intel is not a small company with 3 employees, making its graphics cards in a garage that can't afford to make drivers.

If only they could raise prices, you'd be paying 15 times more for their products.
Don't help them pass on their own costs to other companies.

Drivers for new intel cards only work because they have taken advantage of the free work of the linux people. Intel didn't fix anything on its own.

And you're defending a company that's just trying to launch a product-as-a-service. They also sells processors with blocked capabilities in an attempt to make you pay for them a second time.

It's great that more competition is being created, but it's not a flawless knight on a white horse. So don't act like you just saw him.

That... doesn't answer my question. I'm not defending anybody, I'm just reporting what I've seen & heard and would like to to ask if SteamVR is going to support Intel Arc GPUs if it's not already.

[grzegorz77]

Originally posted by The Man With No Time:

Originally posted by grzegorz77:

....

That... doesn't answer my question. I'm not defending anybody, I'm just reporting what I've seen & heard and would like to to ask if SteamVR is going to support Intel Arc GPUs if it's not already.

Now I understood.
Your mistake lies in wrong assumptions and lack of knowledge.

It's not stem vr, it's supposed to support something or not. Steam vr or steam doesn't support anything. Steam is a site that uses.

You launch the game, the game asks steam vr: "Hey will you do something for me ??"
Steam vr responds: "sure, let's do it".
Then steam vr asks the operating system: "listen, we want to fry meat with the game, and you have access to the grill, will you fire it up for us ??"
The system replies: "I see the graphics card, I ask the driver if he has coal and matches"

Nvidia and amd are friendly and fire up the grill, intel spits in the face pretending that it should be done by someone else.


What I've written is a great simplification, but that's more or less how it works.
When steam says it doesn't support it's, it is a great simplification, because the answer is difficult.

Intel spent a lot of money to make a graphics card.
They didn't do well because it's not easy, but they're trying to cut their losses by selling what they've made cheaply and pretending it works well.
In order not to lose even more, they don't want to pay as much as it takes to make drivers. They're trying to do it cheaper, so it takes longer.
They had to do it because they thought they were going to sell graphic cards very expensively, at prices 3 times higher than they are now. But the cards have "returned" to their price levels. And they had to sell graphics cards immediately, even though they didn't have drivers ready.
And here's the surprise, people buy them, so it doesn't make sense to pay large amounts of money to work on providing 100% working drivers.

So really, it's your fault, not intel's, because you're the one who agreed to buy a non-full-fledged product.
That's how it works, which in my opinion is very sad.

[The Man With No Time]

Originally posted by grzegorz77:

Originally posted by The Man With No Time:

That... doesn't answer my question. I'm not defending anybody, I'm just reporting what I've seen & heard and would like to to ask if SteamVR is going to support Intel Arc GPUs if it's not already.

Now I understood.
Your mistake lies in wrong assumptions and lack of knowledge.

It's not stem vr, it's supposed to support something or not. Steam vr or steam doesn't support anything. Steam is a site that uses.

You launch the game, the game asks steam vr: "Hey will you do something for me ??"
Steam vr responds: "sure, let's do it".
Then steam vr asks the operating system: "listen, we want to fry meat with the game, and you have access to the grill, will you fire it up for us ??"
The system replies: "I see the graphics card, I ask the driver if he has coal and matches"

Nvidia and amd are friendly and fire up the grill, intel spits in the face pretending that it should be done by someone else.


What I've written is a great simplification, but that's more or less how it works.
When steam says it doesn't support it's, it is a great simplification, because the answer is difficult.

Intel spent a lot of money to make a graphics card.
They didn't do well because it's not easy, but they're trying to cut their losses by selling what they've made cheaply and pretending it works well.
In order not to lose even more, they don't want to pay as much as it takes to make drivers. They're trying to do it cheaper, so it takes longer.
They had to do it because they thought they were going to sell graphic cards very expensively, at prices 3 times higher than they are now. But the cards have "returned" to their price levels. And they had to sell graphics cards immediately, even though they didn't have drivers ready.
And here's the surprise, people buy them, so it doesn't make sense to pay large amounts of money to work on providing 100% working drivers.

So really, it's your fault, not intel's, because you're the one who agreed to buy a non-full-fledged product.
That's how it works, which in my opinion is very sad.

Please stop trolling. I'm trying to ask a question and get a straight answer, but you're going off on some philosophical tangent and criticizing me for decisions *that I didn't make.*

I DO NOT have an Intel Arc graphics card, I just want to know if SteamVR supports Arc, and if not, when.

[grzegorz77]

Originally posted by The Man With No Time:

Originally posted by grzegorz77:

....

Please stop trolling. I'm trying to ask a question and get a straight answer, but you're going off on some philosophical tangent and criticizing me for decisions *that I didn't make.*

I DO NOT have an Intel Arc graphics card, I just want to know if SteamVR supports Arc, and if not, when.

I've been trying to write you back like a child. But I see it's not enough.


Now I see you're going to the hairdresser to get milk.


For my part, the conversation is over.


.

[Zyr]

i have an intel gpu

[The Man With No Time]

Originally posted by Zyr:

i have an intel gpu

Has SteamVR worked for you? And if so, does it work well?

[TrenchcoatCraig]

Hi, "The Man With no Time," daily Intel ARC user here.

VR can be made to work on Intel ARC GPUs at present, but VR functionality specifically is too unstable for me to recommend an ARC to anyone interested in VR. Even if you do get it working, compatibility with VR is constantly breaking and changing with every driver update. I don't know the specifics of who is responsible for what failing, but Valve, Intel, and headset manufacturers are all in part (but not equally) responsible for ARC's poor support for VR.

Let me highlight some specific issues you might face:
-SteamVR's video encoder for Steam Link VR is incompatible with ARC GPUs, requiring the use/purchase of third party wireless VR solutions (iVRy, ALVR, Virtual Desktop)
-Intel ARC GPUs are not whitelisted by Oculus as compatible with their desktop software, requiring the use of third party VR runtime solutions (Virtual Desktop). Don't quote me on this, but this also makes all wired Oculus headsets (Rift S and prior) incompatible with Intel ARC entirely.
-Intel ARC does not support "Direct Display" VR rendering modes natively *yet*. This means all "Direct Display" wired VR headsets not from Oculus as incompatible with ARC as well. Direct Display can be disabled in SteamVR settings, allowing wired VR headsets to use the older "Extended Display" method of operation, but I don't have the means to test compatibility with this.

Intel themselves say if you're interested in VR, don't get an ARC at this point in time. I hope it gets better, but its just not where it needs to be yet.