Crimson Desert is facing a wave of discontent from Arc users as the game is unable to launch on Intel Graphics, with users who purchased the game surprised with an error message indicating that it was not supported on their GPUs.
Following months of hype and anticipation, Arc users found themselves unable to play Crimson Desert due to hardware incompatibility. When launching the game on any Intel Arc GPU, an error message shows stating “The graphics device is currently not supported”. This was confirmed by the folks at Hardware Unboxed, who were unable to benchmark it.
After further research, users found that the game’s FAQ clearly stated that the game is not supported on Intel Arc graphics. The question reads:
Does Crimson Desert support Intel Arc?
No, Crimson Desert currently does not support Intel Arc graphics cards. If you purchased the game expecting Intel Arc support, please refer to the refund policy of the platform where the game was purchased for available options. We apologize for any inconvenience caused.
Notice how the developer is encouraging users to seek refunds instead of saying “we are working on fixing this issue” or “we are working with Intel to find the cause”. This leads us to believe that Pearl Abyss, the game’s developer, isn’t planning to support Arc users. At least not any time soon.
This explains why there was no mention of Intel graphics in the game’s system requirements table, despite being really thorough when it came to AMD and Nvidia. It also explains why the game was absent from Intel’s latest driver release, which did include Death Stranding 2: On the Beach. The question I have is, if the developer knew the game was incompatible with Arc graphics, why is there no red sign on Steam warning Arc users? It’s not like there are three of them.
Needless to say, this situation is extremely frustrating for Arc users who assumed that a new game wouldn’t leave potential customers on the side, especially since the game is running just fine on Apple’s M-series Macs. At least poor performance would have been explained by the game’s lovely-looking graphics and massive world, but not supporting it at all is unusual to say the least.
Considering how many laptops are powered exclusively by Intel’s built-in graphics, including the new Panther Lake with its much more powerful Xe3 architecture, this omission seems bizarre. The sentiment must be especially bad for handheld owners, like the MSI Claw 8 AI+.
This shows that Arc is still not the best platform despite the great improvements Intel has achieved recently. Developers will still prioritise platforms that ensure the highest player base, which is understandable. This is a reminder to always check for compatibility before ordering a game; you never know, one of them could ask for exclusive Path Tracing or Neural Shading support, or simply not be compatible for no apparently good reason.
Intel reached out to us and has the following statement regarding Crimson Desert not running on Arc GPUs:
“We’re aware that Crimson Desert currently doesn’t launch on systems with Intel GPUs and we’re hugely disappointed that players using Intel graphics hardware can’t jump in to the world of Pywel at launch.
Getting games running smoothly is always a partnership between developers and hardware makers. Over the past several years, we’ve reached out to Pearl Abyss many times to help test, validate, and optimize support for Intel graphics, providing early hardware, drivers, and engineering resources across multiple generations, including Alchemist, Battlemage, Meteor Lake, and Lunar Lake.
Our teams are deeply committed to helping all studios deliver the best experience possible, providing open tools, documentation, and direct engineering support to make sure their games run well for everyone, including the tens of millions of players using Intel GPUs. We remain ready to assist Pearl Abyss however we can.
For details on the choice not to enable Intel support at launch, please reach out directly to Pearl Abyss.”
Senior Writer at Club386, his love for computers began with an IBM running MS-DOS, and he’s been pushing the limits of technology ever since. Known for his overclocking prowess, Fahd once unlocked an extra 1.1GHz from a humble Pentium E5300 - a feat that cemented his reputation as a master tinkerer. Fluent in English, Arabic, and French, his motto when building a new rig is ‘il ne faut rien laisser au hasard.’