Battlefield 6 beta is crashing with Intel Alchemist GPUs - but there's a fix that might help

Some gamers with an Intel Arc A-Series graphics card - first-generation Alchemist models - are suffering from crashes when trying the Battlefield 6 beta.

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Wccftech picked up on the fact that some PC gamers playing the Battlefield 6 open beta (which just kicked off) are reporting that they are being unceremoniously dumped out of gaming sessions, or that it's crashing on loading a map.

Intel has released a statement on its Gaming Forums which acknowledges these crashes and says that a fix is already in the works. Team Blue says:

"Our team at Intel is aware of the crashing issue some of you are experiencing while playing Battlefield 6 on Intel Arc A-Series discrete GPUs. Rest assured, we're on it! We're working hard to develop a fix and will be rolling out a driver update to resolve this as soon as possible. Thanks for your patience and keep an eye out for updates."

A new Arc graphics driver (v32.0.101.6987) has just been released which comes with Battlefield 6 open beta support (and covers the new Mafia game, too), but it's seemingly gone awry, at least with Alchemist graphics cards. So, hopefully this fresh update will come soon enough.

There are a number of reports of crashing on Intel's own forum, with some gamers running A-Series GPUs saying that they can load some maps, but not others - and in some instances, nothing works at all (with crashes at matchmaking frequently being mentioned).

There are other reports on EA's forums, Reddit, and Bilibili.

A fix is mentioned by an Intel Arc A770 owner (Muza) on Intel's forum, but it only works if you are using the old Intel control panel, apparently. Obviously take this with some seasoning, but it runs as follows:

"To fix the crashing issues go to the Intel control panel -> Games -> Manually Add Game -> Browse to your Battlefield 6 Beta Install Directory and select bf6event.exe. Go to the newly created bf6event.exe profile Settings -> Game Compatibility and select Advanced. This should fix the crashing issues."

For those who want to know about how to revert to said old control panel, there's a Reddit thread here - but remember, follow the advice at your own risk. Still, there are gamers here who say that this does the trick.

The obvious problem here in terms of waiting for an Intel fix is that in the near-term, there's only a short window with the Battlefield 6 open beta - so waiting for Team Blue to sort this out is going to make Alchemist owners feel like they're missing out.

This isn't the first time Intel GPUs have been wonky with a big-name PC launch, of course: the release of Starfield springs to mind, which was plagued by crashing issues.