Making their very own contribution to this busy week of GPU and gaming information, this night Intel took the wraps off of their beforehand teased new graphics management panel. Dubbed the Intel Graphics Command Center, the brand new management panel – or to be extra technically correct, the brand new app – is an effort from Intel to modernize part of their general graphics infrastructure, changing the serviceable (however not essentially beloved) present iteration of the corporate’s management panel. At the identical time nonetheless, it’s additionally step one partially of a bigger course of to organize Intel’s software program stack and general software program ecosystem forward of the corporate’s formidable plans to enter the discrete GPU market in 2020.
Starting from the highest, Intel’s Graphics Command Center is essentially minimize from the identical material as different fashionable graphics management panels, akin to NVIDIA’s GeForce Experience and AMD’s Radeon Settings software. Which is to say, it’s designed to supply a extremely seen and streamlined method to a GPU management panel, making numerous options straightforward to seek out, and general providing a extra user-friendly expertise than the corporate’s present management panel. And whereas Intel doesn’t go as far as to call names, from their presentation it’s clear that they contemplate this type of user-friendly performance to now be a required, baseline characteristic for any GPU ecosystem; during which case Intel is (or somewhat now, was) the one PC GPU vendor missing an equal software.
To that finish, the corporate is launching the brand new Graphics Command Center as a part of their efforts to raised help their present customers, in addition to new customers going ahead. The Intel Graphics Command Center works with 6th Gen Core processors (Skylake) and later, which at this level is most Intel-powered techniques bought in the previous few years. The firm calls it an “early access” launch, and this can be a pretty apt description for the utility as whereas it reveals a stage of polish and stability that comes with over a yr’s work, Intel clearly isn’t carried out including options to it but.
But maybe probably the most attention-grabbing tidbit concerning the Graphics Command Center is the way it’s being distributed: somewhat than being bundled with Intel’s drivers, it’s being delivered by the Microsoft Store on Windows 10. Yes, it’s a full-on UWP software with the entire “modern” thrives that include it, and that is really an vital a part of Intel’s technique. Because Microsoft’s new DCH driver mannequin requires drivers to be stripped right down to the naked necessities and delivered in items – graphics management panels can’t be bundled – these kinds of purposes as a substitute must be delivered individually. In which case, utilizing the Microsoft Store lets Intel faucet into the OS’s built-in software program replace performance. It additionally signifies that the management panel isn’t contingent on the checkered driver replace schedules of PC OEMs; customers can at all times obtain the Graphics Command Center out of band.
Overall, the Graphics Command Center borrows lots from different GPU management purposes. Front and middle is a games-centric method to settings, with the applying preferring to supply game-specific settings when attainable (scanning to find what video games are put in). For one of many 100 or so video games on Intel’s record of supported video games, that is comparatively simple, and every recreation will get its personal web page with acquainted driver-enforced settings akin to anti-aliasing, v-sync, and anisotropic filtering.
Meanwhile, Intel has additionally thrown in some performance to raised clarify what these graphics settings do, in addition to their efficiency impacts. A small query mark subsequent to every setting describes what the setting does, and consists of picture demonstrating the idea as effectively. Meanwhile, in direction of the best of the management for that setting is an indicator to sign the efficiency impression of that setting, to supply a fundamental stage of steering about what the present setting…
