The news means Arc GPUs could struggle to offer optimal performance for older PC games.
To run older PC games, Intel’s upcoming Arc graphics cards are going to rely on emulation rather than native support for DirectX 9.
Intel quietly mentioned the DirectX 9 emulation in a company support document, which users on Twitter noticed over the weekend.
The document notes that Intel is dropping native DirectX9 support for both integrated GPUs in Intel’s 12th Generation Core “Alder Lake” processors and discrete Arc GPUs. Instead, the company will emulate DirectX 9 support through Microsoft’s open-source D3D9On12 interface.
This interface can essentially convert the graphics commands in DirectX 9—which was originally released two decades ago—to DirectX 12, the latest version of the gaming API.
